
ie Christian Year. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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THOUGHTS 



FOR 



THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 



BY 

CAKOLINE FEANCES LITTLE 

AUTHOB OP "THE THBEE VOCATIONS," AND •'LITTLE WINTER-GREEN " 



WITH A PREFACE 

BY 

THE REVEREND WALTER R. GARDNER, D.D. 

PRESIDENT OF NASHOTAH 



JOV 16.1 ^^0^ 



NEW YORK 

E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 

Cooper Union, Fourth Avenue 

1896 






f^ 



$ 



5° 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
BY CAROLINE FRANCES LITTLE 



of Cowsitugg 

WAsaiNorojt 



PKEFACE 

The number of those who are trying 
to practise regularly the kind of pray- 
er called meditation is on the increase. 
Spiritual guides, therefore, are more fre- 
quently called upon to advise with their 
people as to what helps to meditation 
they shall use. There are some persons 
who have gathered for themselves ma- 
terial for thought and prayer ; but there 
are many who must turn to the reflec- 
tions of others if they would meditate 
profitably. And so it is, that every 
book of the nature of spiritual exercises 
that is presented is very welcome, es- 
pecially to those of the clergy who are 
constantly asking themselves, What 
shall I recommend ? What will be 
adapted to the needs and capacity of 
this individual child of God ? 



IV PKEFACE 



Every new line of thought suggested 
for the prayer of meditation is also most 
welcome ; for there may be such a thing 
as fruitless monotony in this form of 
devotion. Because of what we are in 
our constitution, variety is helpful even 
in respect of the direction and matter of 
our prayer. 

No apology, therefore, is necessary for 
offering these " Thoughts " to Christian 
people. Already they have come into 
the hands of a large number of persons, 
through the columns of The Living 
Church newspaper; and because many 
have found them helpful they are pub- 
lished in book form in order that they 
may help a still greater number. 

The writer of these H Thoughts," who 
is well known by name to many Ameri- 
can churchmen, has asked me to add 
this brief preface to her work, hoping 
that the clergy may thus be assured by 
a brother priest that the tone of the 
book is Churchly and Catholic and that 



PREFACE 



it may be placed among those books of 
meditation which they can safely recom- 
mend. 

To follow the Church's services week 
by week, gathering out of them what is 
the mind of the Church, and to meditate 
on the facts of our religion in that order 
in which the Church has arranged them 
must surely result in great good to many 
souls. That the number may be in- 
creased of those who sit at the feet of 
Mother Church to learn what her mind 
and thought is, and who also will make 
her thoughts their prayer is my sincere 
wish in thus recommending this book. 

W. R. Gardner. 

Nashotah, 

Feast of the Purification, 

1896. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

Ik preparing these " Thoughts for the Chris- 
tian Year/' all but one of which have appeared 
in The Living Churchy I have been greatly 
indebted to the writings of Bishop Wilkinson, 
Dr. Pusey, the Kev. Edward L. Cutts, the 
Eev. John Keble, Cardinal Newman, Sir Edwin 
Arnold, James Baldwin Brown, and many other 
writers of prominence. 

C. P. L. 

Brooklyn, New York, 
Lent, 1896. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Advent, 1 

II. The Nativity, 11 

III. The Epiphany, ...... 19 

IV. The Annunciation, 28 

V. The Visitation, 33 

VI. Lent, 40 

VII. Holy Week, 59 

VIII. Easter-tide, 69 

IX. The Ascension, 90 

X. Whit-sunday, 98 

XI. Trinity Sunday, 107 

XII. The Transfiguration, . . . .118 

XIII. The Feast of All Angels, . . . 128 

XIV. All Saints' Day, 137 

XV. The Communion of Saints, . . .143 

XVI, All Souls' Day, 155 

XVII. The Holy Altar, 168 



THOUGHTS 



FOR 



THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 



CHAPTEK L 

ADVENT 

''He's faithfu', that hath promised, He'll surely 

come agen, 
He'll keep His tryst wi' me, at what hour I dinna 

ken; 
But He bids me still to watch, an' ready aye 

to be, 
To gang at ony moment to my ain countree. 

" So I'm watching, aye, an' singing o' my hame as 

I wait 
For the souning of His footfa' this side the 

gowden gate, 
God gie His grace to ilk, an' wha listens noo 

to me, 
That we may gang in gladness to our ain 

countree." 

Such is the beauty and symmetry of the 
Christian Year, that all the events of our 
Lord's Life, and all doctrines necessary for the 



2 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

soul's salvation, are, in it, yearly presented to 
the hearts and minds of her children by Holy 
Church. As the season of Advent recurs, the 
teachings concerning our Lord's second ap- 
pearing come with new power. We daily pray, 
" Thy kingdom come/' in the Lord's Prayer; 
and express our belief in His second Coming, 
in our Creeds, and w T hen the Holy Eucharist 
is offered, the priest says: " And did institute, 
and in His Holy Gospel command us to con- 
tinue, a perpetual memory of that His Precious 
Death and Sacrifice, until His coming again," 
and thus we are constantly reminded of that 
glorious day; yet, the Church in an especial 
way emphasizes at this season the second Ad- 
vent of our Lord. 

The thoughts suggested at this time are 
threefold. Eirst, the greatest fact in the past 
history of the world, namely, that the Lord 
Jesus Christ took upon Him our flesh, came 
into this world, and thereby redeemed it. 
Second, that after appearing on earth, He ap- 
peared in heaven, in the real Holy of Holies 
(of which the Jewish temple was a symbol), 
clad in our humanity, and there ever inter- 
cedes for us, and yet is in the Church until the 



ADVENT 



end of time. The third thought is that great- 
est event for the future, even that He will 
come again in all His glory, Lord of lords and 
King of kings, to take His chosen to Himself, 
and to judge the world. Very graphically 
does St. Paul explain these three appearings 
in the ninth chapter of Hebrews. First He 
appeared in the little town of Bethlehem, " to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself;" then 
He entered " into heaven itself, now to ap- 
pear in the presence of God for us," and last, 
" unto them that look for Him shall He appear 
the second time without sin unto salvation." 

The true key-note of Advent is that, as our 
Lord went away, so He will come any day, to 
judge the world. 

" It may be in the evening 

When the work of the day is done, 
And you have time to sit in the twilight 

And watch the sinking sun, 
While the long bright day dies slowly 

Over the sea, 
And the hour grows quiet and holy 

With thoughts of Me." 

Of the many scores of references in the Old 
and New Testaments to our Lord's second 



4 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Advent, a few important ones will suffice as 
an example. We read in tlie Epistle of St. 
Jude, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, 
prophesied saying, " The Lord cometh with 
ten thousand of His saints, to execute judg- 
ment upon all;" this deserves to be classed 
with the early prophecies of the event. In the 
thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy, we find 
this passage : " He came with ten thousands of 
saints; from His right hand went a fiery law 
for. them." In Haggai occurs the prophecy 
to which St. Paul refers in Hebrews xii. : " Yet 
once, it is a little while, and I will shake the 
heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the 
dryland." In Malachi we read : " Who may 
abide the day of His coming?" In Zachariah 
we find a most explicit reference, showing that 
He will return to the very spot from which He 
ascended : " And His feet shall stand in that 
day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before 
Jerusalem on the east." And in other verses 
of the same chapter we read: " And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that the light shall 
not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day 
which shall be known to the Lord. . . 
And the Lord shall be King over all the earth." 



ADVENT 



The Psalter is replete with allusions to the 
Second Coming. " He shall call the heaven 
from above, and the earth, that He may judge 
His people." In the Venite we sing: " For 
He cometh, for He cometh to judge the 
earth;" in the Cantate Domino, " With right- 
eousness shall He judge the world." 

Of the numerous and explicit references in 
the Gospels and Epistles, as well as in the 
Revelation, every one is more or less aware. 
But constant research and study seem to throw 
new light upon the subject. " It must be 
read," says a devout writer, " in its prof ounder 
teachings, in those wonderful depths of mean- 
ing that underlie its illustrations, its meta- 
phors, its history, as well as sparkle up to the 
sunlight in its bright prophetic announcement 
of coming glory." 

The Jews studied the prophecies, but they 
confused those which foretold His coming with 
glory, by applying them to His first coming; 
hence they refused to receive Him when He 
came in humility. All the prophecies of His 
first Coming, His Birth in Bethlehem, His 
Death and Resurrection, have been fulfilled. 
Those relating to His appearing in great glory 



6 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

remain to be fulfilled. It is easy now for the 
Church to separate the one from the other. 
As those which pointed to His First Coming 
were carried out to the very letter, so we know 
those referring to His second Advent must be 
fulfilled in the manner revealed in Scripture. 
But of that day and hour no man knoweth. 

To meditate upon this subject is both prac- 
tical and devout, and we are commanded to do 
so by our Lord and His Apostles. Christ says : 
" Watch therefore: for ye know not what 
hour your Lord doth come." And : " Ye know 
not when the Master of the house cometh, at 
even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, 
or in the morning." 

He uses the belief in His Coming as a reason 
for fidelity and unworldliness. The Apostles 
use this hope as an encouragement to mildness 
and patience, to sincerity and the sanctification 
of the entire being; to brotherly love and holy 
conversation : they bid us hold fast the hope 
and purify ourselves even as He is pure. The 
two Epistles to the Thessalonians teem with 
thoughts upon this great truth, which St. Paul, 
inspired by the Holy Spirit, presents to his 
readers with earnestness and clearness. There 



ADVENT 



is not one chapter in the two books that does 
not refer to it, and after describing how the 
Lord will come, he says: " Wherefore com- 
fort one another with these words." 

The Eevelation of St. John is full of refer- 
ences to the subject. The Apostles looked 
forward with the most intense longing for the 
coming of our Lord, when they should receive 
the crown of rejoicing, and they exhorted all 
to be patient and keep the commandments 
until His appearing. All the early Christians 
longed for that day, they felt in banishment 
without their King. But now very different 
is the attitude of most Christians. Speaking 
of how few long for that glorious day, a writer 
says : " It is generally those who are passing 
through affliction, or those very near the Lord. 
Those who are enjoying the well- watered plains 
of this world seem to care very little about see- 
ing the owner of the estate." 

But the Church guards against her chil- 
dren's forgetting this glorious hope by her 
daily references to it, and her special yearly 
teachings in Collects, Epistles, and Gospels. 
In the Collect for the first Sunday in Advent, 
we pray : " That in the last day, when He shall 



8 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

come again in His glorious majesty to judge 
both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the 
life immortal." On the third Sunday we are 
taught that as St. John the Baptist was sent to 
prepare for the first Coming, so the priests of 
the Church are sent to prepare the way for the 
second. 

We know that the saints in Paradise must 
look forward with patient but intense longing 
for that day ; in the words of an English 
bishop: " Think how they must desire to see 
Christ no longer humbled and patronized, and 
His Bride no longer despised, to see Him ac- 
knowledged as King of kings and Lord of lords, 
to see the mightiest conquerors among the sons 
of men casting down their crowns before the 
throne." 

The world laughs at those who are watching 
for His appearing, even as St. Peter foretold : 
" There shall come in the last days scoffers, 

. . saying : where is the promise of His 
coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all 
things continue as they were from the begin- 
ning." 

One by one the events prophesied to take 
place before that day are being fulfilled; the 



ADVENT 



Gospel has been offered to almost all nations, 
the remnant of Israel is year by year returning 
to Palestine, and in Jerusalem the Jews are 
numbered by thousands. 

" When these things begin to come to pass, 
then look up, and lift up your heads; for your 
redemption draweth nigh." 

" For unto you is given 

To watch for the coming of His feet, 
Who is the glory of our blessed heaven, 

The work and watching will be very sweet. 

"Even in an earthly home, 

And in such an hour as ye think not, 
He will come! " 

The Greek word translated coming, apoko- 
lupsis, does not mean coming as from a dis- 
tance, but merely the lifting up of the veil 
which separates the invisible world from our 
natural vision. To some the veil seems im- 
penetrable, but to others the rays of golden 
glory are shining through; and as it is con- 
stantly lifted for loved ones to enter, visions 
of the glory which shall be revealed are vouch- 
safed to the waiting and longing Church. 
Alas! for that soul which, like Galileo, " cares 



10 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

for none of those things." To such the second 
Coming is a genuine Dies Irce, but the chil- 
dren of the Church comfort themselves with 
the glorious hope of His appearing, when " we 
shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He 



is." 



" Thou art coming! We are waiting 
With a hope that cannot fail; 
Asking not the day or hour, 
Resting on Thy word of power, 
Anchored safe within the veil. 

" Time appointed may be long, 
But the vision must be sure, 
Certainty shall make us strong, 
Joyful patience can endure." 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NATIVITY 

" O little town of Bethlehem! 

How still we see thee lie; 
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep 

The silent stars go by. 
Yet in thy dark streets shineth 

The everlasting* Light; 
The hopes and fears of all the years 

Are met in thee to-night." 

There is an inexpressible tenderness and 
pathos in the fact, that while the highest and 
most powerful classes of the worldly wise were 
unconscious of the glory that overshadowed 
them, the King of kings came to earth in the 
guise of a little child, to save and redeem 
those very ones who had forgotten the promise 
of His coming. In imperial Rome the thou- 
sands of spectators who flocked to the amphi- 
theatre, and the senators who were offering 
divine honors to their cruel emperor, were de- 
sirous of no Messiah, neither did they await 



12 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

His advent. In cultured Greece, the wise 
philosophers knew not that He who would 
teach the true philosophy was about to come 
to earth; while in Jerusalem, the proud 
Pharisee and the learned Scribe, fulfilling the 
letter of the law but neglecting the spirit, were 
longing for a Messiah who would come with 
a retinue and pomp which would surpass any 
that earth's proudest monarch had possessed. 
But here and there, in both heathen and Jew- 
ish lands, some simple and holy souls were 
gazing heavenward with an earnest hope of 
better things to come. 

Christies natus est! But what depths of 
humility! Not in palace of the Caesars, not 
in sculptured dwellings of the Greeks, must 
we look for the Christ, but in the rude stable, 
in a manger. " Where the beasts at morn will 
champ their bean-straw " lay the Holy Babe, 
waited upon by the adoring Virgin Mother 
and the devout Joseph. But the glory of the 
invisible world centred in that humble cave. 
Angels and archangels knelt in awe, for the 
Almighty had said, when He brought His 
First Begotten into the world : " And let all 
the angels of God worship Him ! " 



THE NATIVITY 13 



Strange and mysterious was the Divine se- 
lection, that out of all the myriad worlds, God 
chose our little one for such scenes of tran- 
scendent import; and of all the cities of our 
earth, chose the little town of Bethlehem, nes- 
tled among the hills of Palestine, as the birth- 
place of the Saviour of mankind. 

" So many hills arising, green and gray, 
On earth's large round, 
And that one hill to say: 
1 1 was His bearing place.' " 

In the study of God's dealings with the 
world, with a nation, or with an individual, 
we find mysterious connecting links. Bethle- 
hem, the house of bread, had a history long 
before the culminating event of our Lord's 
birth made it forever memorable in the annals 
of the world. Here, within a mile at least, 
Benjamin was born, as Jacob was returning 
with his family, flocks, and herds, to his native 
land; here Ruth became the wife of Boaz and 
ancestress of our Lord; here David, a type in 
many ways of the true Anointed, was also 
born; and it was King David who gave to 
Chimham, the son of the hospitable Barzillai, 



14 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

as a possession forever, his own ancestral home 
in which Euth and Boaz had lived. More than 
four hundred years after, this same house, 
called the house of Chiniham, and now become 
the khan, or public inn, was the refuge of 
Jeremiah in the days of heathen persecution. 

Thus link joins link, until the types which 
foretold the great event had passed away, and 
then two weary travellers sought at this same 
khan a night's lodging. But there was no 
room for them in the inn, so in the adjoining 
stable, a part, really, of the establishment, they 
found a humble resting-place. Mary, the 
holy and uncomplaining Maid of Nazareth, 
tired with her long and tedious journey, had 
no earthly companion save Joseph, her divine- 
ly appointed guardian. But surely she, blessed 
above all other women, was conscious of the 
presence of the heavenly attendants who filled 
the rude shelter. 

The Nativity is presented to us in a twofold 
aspect, the heavenward and the earthward. 
Looking at it in its heavenly aspect we see the 
Only Begotten of the Father, Who from all 
eternity reigned co-equally with the Father 
and the Holy Spirit, leaving His glory, resign- 



THE NATIVITY 15 



ing His throne, and veiling His Divinity by 
taking to Himself our flesh, and becoming for 
us a little child. Truly, the angels must have 
desired to look into such a mystery of divine 
love, and it was fitting that they should appear 
visibly on earth to announce the joyful tidings 
that the Saviour, Christ the Lord, was born. 

" What sudden blaze of song 

Spreads o'er the expanse of heaven? 
In waves of light it thrills along, 
The angelic signal given. 
* Glory to God! on high, on earth be peace, 
And love towards men of love, salvation and 
release.' " 

Then take the Nativity on its earthly side. 
Though the kings of the world heeded not His 
coming, a few humble shepherds, tending their 
flocks by night, thought and talked of the 
promised Messiah. To these men, lowly and 
humble of heart, following the occupation of 
David who tended his father's sheep, the celes- 
tial vision was vouchsafed. They only, with 
the three Wise Men, seers from the ever- 
thoughtful Orient, were prepared for the 
" glad tidings of great joy." The shepherds, 
types of humility, and the sages, types of that 



16 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

heavenly wisdom which is first pure and then 
peaceable, alone were chosen. 

" So many simple shepherds keeping flocks, 
In many moonlit fields! bnt only they, 
So lone, so long ago, so far away, 
On that one winter's night, at Bethlehem, 
To have white angels singing lauds for them." 

There is an indescribable something, very- 
near to heaven, that surrounds every little 
babe ; how infinitely more did it irradiate the 
Christ-Child. And He, the Holiest, sleeps, 
apparently unconscious of that life of suffering 
into which He had entered: 

" Sleep, my Saviour, sleep, 
Sweet on Mary's breast; 
Now the shepherds kneel adoring, 
Now the Mother's heart is joyous, 
Take a happy rest. 

" Sleep, my Saviour, sleep, 
Sweet on Mary's breast; 
Crucified, with wound and bruises 
Bleeding, purple, stained, disfigured, 
One day Thou wilt rest." 

For a moment imagine ourselves in the 
place of the humble shepherds. They have 
seen not merely one angel, but a multitude of 



THE NATIVITY 17 



the heavenly host, singing and praising God. 
And now to them, as so often to the devout and 
lowly, a sign is given to confirm the vision: 
" Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling 
clothes lying in a manger." "Would we not 
have hasted, even as they did, to see this 
glorious sign which the angels had given? 

" Therewith hasted they 
By olive-yards, and old walls mossed and gray, 
Where in close chinks, the lizard and the snake, 
Thinking* the sunlight come, stirred half awake ; 
Across the terraced levels of the vines, 
Under the pillared palms, along the lines 
Of lance-leaved oleanders, scented sweet, 
Through the pomegranate-gardens sped their 

feet; 
Past David's well, past the town-wall they ran, 
Unto the house of Chimham, to the Khan." 

Who in all the wide world, save the Holy 
Family, and the three Wise Men, who, even 
now, were travelling from the land of the ris- 
ing sun, would have believed the story of the 
simple shepherds' vision? The haughty Phar- 
isee, and the learned Rabbi, the cultured 
Greek, and the voluptuous Roman, would they 
have given credence to a tale of the super- 
natural? Ah, no! even as to-day the world 
2 



18 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHKISTIAK YEAR 

would have laughed at their faith. Dreams, 
superstitions, overwrought imaginations, these 
are the terms by which the shepherds' vision 
of angels would be designated by the sceptical 
and heartless multitude. 

Outwardly, the world remained the same, 
buying and selling, tyrannizing and oppress- 
ing, not recognizing the fact that the Son of 
God had come to dwell amongst them, bring- 
ing to all a message of peace. 

" Peace on earth and good-will, 
Souls that are gentle and still, 
Hear the first music of this 
Far-off, infinite bliss." 

The great lesson for us to learn from the 
Nativity of our Lord, is humility. What in- 
sults, what degradation, what slights can the 
world offer to us compared with those our 
Saviour endured from the time He left His 
heavenly home to be born in a rude stable, 
until, after thirty years of lowly and patient 
toil, and three years of teaching and minister- 
ing to an ungrateful world, He pillowed His 
dying, thorn-crowned head upon the hard 
wood of the cross, and so consummated the 
Great Sacrifice of His mysterious earth-life. 



CHAPTEE in. 

THE EPIPHANY 

" Witness them entering, these three from afar, 
Who knew the skies, and had the strange white 

star 
To light their nightly lamp, thro' deserts wide 
Of Bactria, and the Persic wastes, and tide 
Of Tigris and Euphrates, past the snow 
Of Ararat, and where the sand winds blow 
O'er Ituraea; and the crimson peaks 
Of Moab, and the fierce, bright, barren reeks 
From Asphaltitris; to this hill — to thee 
Bethlehem-Ephrata ! " 

To us, who are " the dwellers in the utter- 
most parts of the earth/' the Gentiles, who 
were not included in the Covenant which the 
Great Jehovah made with His chosen Israel- 
ites, the festival of the Epiphany comes with 
transcendent import; for in the adoration of 
the Orient sages, we behold the first-fruits of 
the Gentile Church. As one of our bishops 
says: " There seems a great propriety that we 
should keep the feast with a willing and a holy 



20 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

worship; presenting ourselves before God on 
its recurrence as living witnesses that those 
who sat in darkness have seen a great light." 

This day, so wonderful in its supernatural 
and practical teachings, is known by different 
names. With us, Twelfth Mght, and the 
Epiphany, signifying in the Greek, " the 
Manifestation," are the usual appellations. 
In the German language the day is called 
Dreykonigstag, and in the French, Les Rois y 
while in the old Moz-arabic ritual it is called 
Apparitio Domini, and in the Spanish 
Apparicon. 

One of the most natural questions to ask is, 
who were these wise men, who travelled from 
the distant East to worship the Christ-Child, 
and is there any information concerning them 
that may be gleaned from the Bible or from 
tradition? In the Old Testament prophecies 
there are many references to the visit of the 
Magi, which reveal their rank and nationality. 
In that grand psalm of prayer for Solomon, 
lifting up his eyes, David beheld the scroll of 
the future unrolled, and declared: " The 
Kings of Tharsis and of the isles shall give 
presents; the kings of Arabia and Saba shall 



THE EPIPHANY 21 



bring gifts." In one of the lessons for the day, 
perhaps the most glorious among the prophe- 
cies of Isaiah, we find many allusions to the 
wise men. " And the Gentiles shall come to 
Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy 
rising. . . . The multitudes of camels 
shall cover Thee, the dromedaries of Midian 
and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; 
they shall bring gold and incense, and they 
shall show forth the praises of the Lord." 
And again: " Surely the isles shall wait for 
me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring 
Thy sons from far, their silver and their gold 
with them, unto the name of the Lord Thy 
God." 

St. Matthew, alone of the four gospellers, 
gives an account of the story, in which he 
describes them merely as " wise men from the 
East." 

Of traditional teaching concerning the Magi 
we have much that is interesting. They were 
men of high rank, for the prophecies speak of 
them as kings, and in the East it was the 
learned priests and men of high rank who 
were devoted to the study of astronomy and 
mystic lore. In early Christian sculpture and 



22 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

mosaics they are always represented as three 
in number, and alike in appearance. Later, 
we find them portrayed in art as types of three 
great nations. The names given to them are 
Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar; and it is 
believed that returning to their own country, 
they spent the remainder of their lives in the 
service of God, and in due time were bap- 
tized by St. Thomas, the Apostle to India. 

The thought arises, how did they, not being 
the children of the Covenant, know that which 
was revealed to so few in the land of God's 
chosen people? There can be but one solu- 
tion of the question; their foreknowledge was 
supernatural. The Birth of Christ was sur- 
rounded from the first by supernatural events, 
in which the ministry of the angels forms a 
prominent part. An angel announces the Ad- 
vent of our Lord to the Blessed Mary; the 
same information is given to St. Joseph in a 
dream, and the angels appear to the shepherds; 
hence we may safely assert that the joyful 
tidings were revealed by angels or dreams to 
the three devout sages who waited upon God 
to learn His will. To them the miraculous 
star was given as a sign, that star which 



THE EPIPHANY 23 



Balaam, the son of Beor, foretold should arise 
out of Jacob. Says a prominent Church his- 
torian : " It does not appear, on a study of the 
whole narrative, that the star went before them 
as a guide from their abode in the East to 
Jerusalem." 

We see from St. Matthew that after obtain- 
ing the information they desired, they left 
Jerusalem and wended their way toward 
Bethlehem; then " the star, which they saw 
in the East, went before them, till it came 
and stood over where the young Child was." 
The next verse plainly indicates that on the 
journey they had been without the visible 
sign. " "When they saw the star, they rejoiced 
with exceeding great joy." An ancient com- 
mentary on St. Matthew says the star had the 
form of a radiant child bearing a sceptre or a 
cross. Whatever its form, it was startling and 
unusual, and thus easily discerned by the wise 
men, for whose benefit it alone appeared. It 
must have moved along close to the earth, in 
order to indicate the very house in which the 
Holy Family were dwelling. The fact that 
these kings were of the despised Gentile race, 
and yet were chosen to be the recipients of 



24 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

such marvellous supernatural revelations, con- 
firms what St. Peter declared: " In every 
nation he that feareth Him, and worketh 
righteousness, is accepted with Him." 

Many learned men among the Orientals 
were thoughtful and devout, striving to ascer- 
tain and perform the will of the God Whom 
they longed to know. The author of " Ben 
Hur " depicts Gaspar as saying: " I gave my- 
self up to waiting for what every breath was a 
prayer — for revelation. Believing in God, in- 
visible, yet supreme, I also believed it possible 
so to yearn for Him, with all my soul, that He 
would take compassion and give me an an- 
swer." God never refuses the gift of Himself 
to the soul that yearns for Him. " Delight 
thou in the Lord and He shall give thee thy 
heart's desire." 

Very beautiful is the description of the ap- 
pearance of these Eastern travellers by one 
who is conversant with Oriental manners and 
customs : 

" The Indian silk affords, with many a folded 
braid of white and gold, 
Shade to their brows; rich goat-hair shawls 
did fold, 



THE EPIPHANY 25 



Their gowns of flow'r'd white muslin, midway 

tied; 
Curled shoes of goat-skin dyed, with seed pearls 

hemmed, 
Shod their brown feet; hair shorn; lids low, to 

think — 
Eyes deep and wistful, as of those who drink 
Waters of hidden wisdom, night and day, 
And live twain lives, conforming as they may, 
In diligence, and due observances 
To ways of men ; yet, not at one with these ; 
But ever straining past the things that seem 
To that which Is — the Truth behind the Dream." 

By the teaching of the Holy Spirit they 
knew the Christ-Child, and when they beheld 
Him with His ever-blessed Mother, they fell 
down and worshipped Him; and then having 
thus offered Him first the gift of themselves, 
they opened their costly treasures, for they 
had not come empty-handed to worship Him, 
and presented Him with a wealth of the rarest 
treasures, gold, frankincense, and myrrh — 
symbolic gifts, which the Spirit had directed 
them to bring. 

" Sacred gifts of mystic meaning, 
Incense doth the God disclose, 
Gold, the King of kings proclaimeth, 
Myrrh, His sepulchre foreshows.' 5 



26 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Then the sacred narrative tells us that God 
warned them in a dream (thereby giving us the 
clew as to the first revelation) not to return to 
Herod, and, mindful of this heavenly warning, 
they obeyed. The unscrupulous Herod, en- 
raged at being thwarted in his brutal and sacre- 
ligious purposes, issued the infamous edict that 
all the little ones in Bethlehem and the coasts 
thereof should be slain. 

Did the foolish monarch imagine that he 
could frustrate the workings of Divine Provi- 
dence, or readjust the plans and counsels 
known to the Blessed Trinity from all eter- 
nity? Did he believe that there were no holy 
angels who would guard the Christ-Child from 
the profaning hands of the soldiers who were 
bidden to execute his barbarous plans? Truly, 
it is a vain thing to fight against God! He 
only added to his own sins and filled to over- 
flowing the cup of his iniquity. True, many 
little ones were slain, but oh! what infinite 
compensation in the celestial world atoned to 
them for the loss of their life here. For 
now they follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
goeth, and are without fault before the throne 
of God. 



THE EPIPHANY 27 



The Holy Family, surrounded by angels, 
journey in peace and safety to the land of the 
Egyptians, while : 

" The Eastern Three 
Wind homewards, lightened of their spice and 

gold; 
And those great days, that were to be, unfold 
In the fair fields beside the shining sea 
Which rolls, mid palms and rocks, in Galilee." 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE ANNUNCIATION 

" Ave Maria! blessed maid! 
Lily of Eden's fragrant shade. 

Who can express the love 
That nurtured thee so pure and sweet, 
Making thy heart a shelter meet 
For Jesus' holy Dove?" 

— KeMe. 

To all thoughtful and devout Catholics the 
Annunciation suggests the most profound as 
well as the most humble meditation. For 
nearly a score of centuries, poets, artists, and 
theologians have delighted to portray that 
scene which was of such stupendous conse- 
quence to our fallen humanity, the Incarna- 
tion of the Son of God. 

With reverence we may think of that pure, 
thoughtful maiden, robed in spotless white, as 
she knelt at her evening devotions, desiring in 
her heart of hearts the coming of the Messiah. 
Ancient prophecy had foretold that He should 
restore to favor His chosen people. "With 



THE ANNUNCIATION 29 

folded hands she must have prayed to the great 
Jehovah that the Desire of all nations might 
come to a sin-laden people to release them 
from their bonds ; that the Star of Jacob might 
arise; that the Prince might be born, and that 
the promise made to Eve might be fulfilled! 

But not to herself did she dream that this 
honor was to be vouchsafed ! She prayed not 
that she might become the mother of the 
Messiah. Hers was a humility too deep to 
have imagined herself worthy of such an hon- 
or, but she prayed only that the time of the 
great Advent might speedily come. 

All Jewish matrons longed for the honor of 
becoming the mother of the promised Messiah, 
but to none of them, wealthy, gifted, and re- 
ligious, came the celestial Messenger; it came 
only to a simple and devout village maid, of 
the little town of Nazareth. 

Even as now the still, small voice speaks not 
to the devotee of fashion, nor to the gay world- 
ling, nor to the proud and ambitious leader, 
but to the humble and pure, who seek not pub- 
licity and notoriety, but strive to do the will 
of God with a gentle and unobtrusive spirit, 
wherever it hath pleased Him to call them. 



30 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

As Mary communed with her Maker, a 
heavenly light filled the apartment, and the 
great angel of the Presence chamber, he who 
said to Zacharias, " I am Gabriel that stand in 
the presence of God," appeared to the humble 
maid with the angelic salutation : " Hail ! thou 
that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee : 
Blessed art thou among women!" 

It was not the appearance of the angel that 
troubled her. St. Luke says, " She was troub 
led at his saying, and cast in her mind what 
manner of salutation this should be." It may 
not have been her first glimpse of a celestial 
visitor. The pure in heart are sometimes 
vouchsafed communion with the heavenly in- 
habitants; Abraham, Manoah, Jacob, Elijah, 
Elisha, Daniel, Zacharias, and others were, 
even in the old dispensation, permitted to see 
angels. In the words of an eminent writer of 
our day: " Angels have power to make them- 
selves visible or to remain invisible to men; 
men may see or not see angels, according to 
their own mental or spiritual state." 

Very tenderly the heavenly visitor reassures 
her, telling her not to fear his saying, for she 
has found favor with God. Her prayer is an- 



THE ANNUNCIATION 



swered; the Christ is coming, but, wonder of 
wonders, He is coming to that pure, humble 
maiden ! Ah, what faith, what humility, what 
prompt, implicit obedience is hers, as Gabriel 
explains to her the honor that has been be- 
stowed upon her ! 

It was not a sudden spirit of obedience, it 
was the habit of her life, young as she was, that 
prompted her to say, with lowly submission: 
" Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto 
me according to thy word!" 

The heavenly radiance fades from her vis- 
ion, but with angels, and archangels, and all 
the company of heaven, she is worshipping the 
Triune God ; the Word is made flesh, and God 
has tabernacled with mankind ! 

" And her soul was filled with a sacred light, 
And she knew that to her was given 
A crown eternal, surpassing all 
The glories of earth and heaven." 

And now the glory of heavenly life that Eve 
lost for her race, is again vouchsafed to us by 
the faith of the Blessed Virgin, the mother of 
our Redeemer, of Him who has opened the 
gates of Paradise to all believers! The Day 



32 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Star has indeed risen above the horizon, the 
night is far spent, and dawn of a day that 
knows no ending is at hand. All generations 
shall call her, Mary of Galilee, blessed above 
all women. 

" Upon the virgin's brow 

Sits innocence enthroned, 
And motherhood's sweet presence now 
Its lighter lines have toned. 
Thou hast no jasper palace trod, nor unveiled 

glories seen, 
Yet o'er thee rests the aureole of heaven's un- 
tinted sheen." 



CHAPTEE Y. 

THE VISITATION 

" Hail ! fair Madonna, hail ! 
O'er all thy sisterhood, 
Transcendent image of the True, 
The Beautiful, the Good, 
All generations shall rise up, and welcome thee, 

the blest, 
As in the holy calendar that heralds thy high 
feast." 

It seems to be a characteristic of the record 
of God's dealing with men, that signs, as a con- 
firmation of faith, are seldom vouchsafed to 
the doubting, the incredulous, or to those who, 
like the chief priests and scribes, demand a 
sign, in scorn or derision of sacred persons and 
things. The Blessed Virgin did not doubt 
God's message to her, but to strengthen her 
sincere faith, the angel gave her a sign. 

It was in the early spring that the holy Maid 
started with all haste, up through that lovely 



34 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

fertile country to a city of Judea, situated 
among the beautiful Judean hills, there to con- 
fer with her aged cousin Elizabeth, the wife of 
Zacharias, upon the joyful events which the 
future had in store for them. The birds must 
have carolled more joyfully at her coming, 
and the early flowers put forth their most beau- 
teous blossoms, as they heard the approaching 
footsteps of the Bride of heaven. The meeting 
of the two relatives, one so aged, and the other 
so young and fair, is graphically described by 
St. Luke. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy 
Ghost and in her humility cries: " Whence is 
this to me that the mother of my Lord should 
come to me ! " prefacing her remark with the 
exclamation: " Blessed art thou among wom- 
en!" Then, unable longer to conceal the 
rapturous joy with which her pure, devout 
heart was overflowing, Mary breaks forth into 
those inspired strains of praise, which are the 
priceless heritage of the Catholic Church. 

" My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." 

This hymn is the first intimation that we 
have of the Holy Maid's apprehension of the 



THE VISITATION 35 

great things which she had seen and heard. 
It deserves the most careful and devotional 
study. In comparing it with the ninety-eighth 
Psalm we find a similarity of thought. 

" O sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath 
done marvellous things 
With His own right hand, and with His holy arm, 
hath He gotten Himself the victory." 

In the Magnificat, Mary says: " He hath 
showed strength with His arm, He hath scat- 
tered the proud in the imagination of their 
hearts. " In the fourth verse of the Psalm, 
David says : " He hath remembered His mercy 
and truth toward the house of Israel; and all 
the ends of the world have seen the salvation 
of our God." While the Blessed Virgin says, 
" He remembering His mercy hath holpen 
His servant Israel." 

The Psalms and prophecies must have been 
very familiar to one of St. Mary's devout 
habits of thought, and further proof of this 
may be found in comparing her song with that 
of Hannah, the joyful mother of Samuel. In 
her thanksgiving, after having dedicated her 
little son to the service of the temple, we no- 



36 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

tice some similar thoughts, as in the following 
quotations, some of which are abbreviated: 

" My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is ex- 
alted in the Lord, because I rejoice in thy 
salvation. 
■& # * * * * # * 

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; He 
bringeth low and lifteth np: 

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, to make 
them inherit the throne of glory. . . . 
He will keep the feet of His saints, and the 
wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by 
strength shall no man prevail." 

Then Hannah breaks forth into an inspired 
prophecy of the judgment and the exaltation 
of the Christ : 

" Out of heaven shall He thunder upon them; the 
Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and 
He shall give strength unto His King, and 
shall exalt the horn of His anointed I " 

And as Hannah gave her son to the Lord, so 
holy Mary, although knowing that a sword 
should pierce through her own soul, yet hin- 
dered not her Son and Saviour from entering 
upon His work, willingly bearing such sorrow 
and anguish as no other woman ever experi- 
enced. 

The Gospel says that Mary abode about 



THE VISITATION 37 

three months with Elizabeth. Oh! how 
elevated must have been the unrecorded inter- 
course of these three months. What a feast 
of spiritual things ! What an interchange of 
religious thought, and what a study and search- 
ing of the prophecies which foretold the com- 
ing of the Messiah, and of Elias, His forerunner. 
There is a beautiful legend connected with 
St. Mary after her return to Nazareth. It is 
said that a certain stream where the maiden 
came and dipped the linen garments she was 
making, became possessed of miraculous pow- 
ers. The story is beautifully told in a poem 
from which a few verses may be quoted: 

" By Nazareth, in waters fair, 

The Virgin dipped the robes of white; 
A woman washed beside her there 
Her linen, in the rosy light.' ' 

The woman tells St. Mary of the wonderful 

healing power the waters now possess, and 

says : 

" Have angels stirred the mystic pool? 
The Virgin whispered: ' Praise the Lord.' 

And Mary smiled with secret thrill, 
Not yet the time ! And dreamed her dream, 

Sweet soul, and still she came, and still, 
She dipped small garments in the stream." 



38 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Fondly the imagination lingers around the 
Holy Maid who knew the secrets of heaven, 
and " pondered them in her heart;" and many 
are the lessons we may draw for ourselves from 
these sacred and historic events. 

Again, an angel from heaven appears in 
Nazareth, but this time to the aged Joseph, 
and appoints him the guardian of the mother 
and her Holy Child, that Child who, the mes- 
senger announces, shall save His people from 
their sins. 

There is one thing that we do well to medi- 
tate upon, and that is the supreme blessedness 
of Mary. In the angel Gabriel's message to 
her, he says: " Blessed art thou among wom- 
en." And Elizabeth, speaking by the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, says: " Blessed art 
thou among women;" and also, " Blessed is she 
that hath believed, for there shall be a per- 
formance of those things which were told her 
from the Lord." And again, Mary, who was 
full of grace, says of herself, " All generations 
shall call me blessed." 

"What other woman so fitted to be the model 
for the women of our day, as the Mother of our 
Lord ? She, who shows the calm spirit of recol- 



THE VISITATION 39 

lection and humble obedience, wherever we 
meet with her in the sacred record. At the 
Annunciation, the Visitation, the Presenta- 
tion, throughout our Lord's earthly life, and 
even standing at the Cross, " her watchful 
station keeping." 

" O thou, august o'er all sweet womanhood, 
Thou ever blest and ever holy one, 
Gazing, tear-dimmed, upon thy bleeding Son." 

Ah! how different from many mothers of 
the nineteenth century. 

" Do they help as the Blessed Virgin did, 
Will they yield to our Father's will, 

Will they give up all 

To the Master's call, 
And love and serve Him still? 

" Oh, mothers! live as Saint Mary lived, 
To magnify the Lord 

If strong to bear, 

You may surely share 
The exceeding great reward." 



CHAPTEE VI. 

LENT 

: Hear thy servant's meditations, 
Lord of Light and Love Divine, 
Hear our sad soul's supplications, 
And incline our wills to Thine ! 
May this time of prayer and fasting, 
All these hours of holy rest, 
Bring us treasures everlasting, 
Be to us a season blest." 



INTRODUCTION 

The devout observance of the Lenten season 
is a habit that increases with each returning 
year, and is one which can never pall upon 
those who hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. For there are always sins to be over- 
come, works of corporal and spiritual mercy to 
be engaged in, and, above all, the withdrawal 
from the world and its lawful pursuits gives 
more time and quiet for meditation, that hand- 



LENT 41 

maid of religion. The contemplation of God 
and heavenly things is an ever-springing foun- 
tain which the ages of eternity cannot exhaust. 
Says the devout Francis de Sales : " I will con- 
template the infinite wisdom, omnipotent, and 
incomprehensible goodness of God, but I will 
specially aim at this — how these excellent at- 
tributes shine forth in the sacred mysteries of 
the life of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

There is then no subject so suitable for Len- 
ten contemplation as the human side of the life 
of Christ. He came to earth not only as a 
sacrifice for our sins; He came also to set us 
the example of a pure and holy life. There 
are many w T ays in which to study the life of the 
blessed Jesus, but it will suffice for our purpose 
to look upon it in two aspects. We find that 
His life was one of work, and yet it was pre- 
eminently a life of prayer. He worked as a 
man and He prayed as a man. 

i. — WORK 

The life of our Lord was one of simplicity. 
His home was the abode of a carpenter in an 
obscure mountain village. In this town of 
Nazareth, held in ill-repute by the inhabitants 



42 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

of Palestine, He passed thirty years, making 
Himself one with the poor and lowly, whom 
He had come to save. Infinite would have 
been His condescension had He left His 
Father's house for the highest earthly throne, 
but how transcendent is His humility when we 
view Him in His lowly Nazarene home. As 
has been said : " He set His own feet upon the 
paths which the poor and neglected must tread. 
He lived His life in Nazareth that He might 
pour silent contempt upon the world's pride of 
place, fortune, and fame ; and that His follow- 
ers might learn to make any post of duty hon- 
orable by their own greatness and fidelity." 

We can picture to ourselves our Lord as He 
came to manhood and took upon Himself His 
foster-father's trade, and supported His gentle 
and holy mother by the labors of His own 
hands. He knew weariness, hunger, and thirst 
like others, but still He toiled on, unknown 
and secluded, waiting until His Father should 
give the word which would be the signal for 
His going forth upon the special mission for 
which He entered this world. As a man He 
learned the lesson of silence, patience, and 
humility while He plied His lowly trade. 



LEJSTT 43 

" Meek and sweet in the sun He stands, 
Drinking the cool of his Syrian skies. 
Lifting to Heaven toil-wearied hands, 
Seeing His Father with those pure eyes. 

" Gazing from trestle and bench and saw 
To the kingdom kept for His rule above; 
Oh, Jesu, Lord! we see with awe! 
Oh, Mary's son, w^e look with love! " 

" I must work the works of Him that sent 
me," was ever our Lord's motto. Whether 
it were to labor at the carpenter's bench, or to 
heal the sick and feed the multitude, He ever 
held Himself in readiness for each heaven-sent 
task as it presented itself before Him. The 
heart kindles with humble and adoring love 
as it dwells upon the self-sacrificing life of 
Christ. 

" Do I not love Thee ? Thou whose patient feet 
Pressed Olivet's green slopes, or wearily 
Day after day, along the city's street, 
Mid toil and heat bore the hard lot of our hu- 
manity! " 

Finding that our Lord's life was one of 
work, we must of necessity endeavor to make 
our own after the pattern revealed to us. We 
find that He always did the work that His 
Father set for Him. We, each one of us, are 



44 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

placed in this world to do some certain work, 
which no one else can do, and which we are 
fitted by nature to perform. In the words of 
Mrs. Charles: " Let us be very careful of 
thinking, on the one hand, that we have no 
work assigned us to do, or, on the other, that 
what we have assigned to us is not the right 
thing for us." And Ruskin says: " He sets 
us all in the places where He wishes us to be 
employed, and that employment is truly our 
Father's business. He chooses work for every 
creature which will be delightful to them if 
they do it simply and humbly. He always 
gives strength enough and sense enough for 
what He wants us to do." 

If we hold ourselves in readiness to do what- 
ever He appoints, we will never complain if 
our little plans are frustrated and the time in 
which we intended to perform great deeds is 
occupied by the performance of what seems 
trivial to us. No work appointed by God, and 
done for Him, is trivial. Instead of the active, 
useful life we had planned, we may be called 
aside from the busy world to suffer and to be 
silent. Yet this is acceptable work to God. 
" They also serve who only stand and wait." 



LEKT 45 

Carlyle says: " Do not object that your duties 
are so insignificant; they are to be reckoned 
of infinite significance, and alone important to 
you." Years that are spent in obscurity are 
not lost years. There we may learn the lessons 
Christ came to teach; and when the lowly tasks 
are faithfully performed, either here or in the 
world beyond, other and greater tasks may 
await us. But until then let us learn the pa- 
tient waiting taught by those thirty years in 
Nazareth. 

" O silent years that saw the Light of Light 
Fulfil Himself, and orb to perf ectness 
In lonely splendor, ere He rose to bless 

The world that waited in its deepening night, 

Teach the impatient hearts that burn to right 
Earth's wrongs by some great deed's immediate 

stress, 
The heavenly power of simple holiness! 

That he who in his Nazareth out of sight 
Awaits a high commission from above, 

May surely know he serves his fellows when 
He draws God earthward by up-reaching love, 

Enshrining Him amid the lives of men; 
Since they who would redeem the world from sin 
By lifting souls, must first have God within." 

Work done for God, and because it is our 
duty, is never degrading. But to work ac- 



46 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

ceptably to God we must work with Him, with, 
a realizing sense of His presence. In the words 
of Dr. Pusey: " Not man's manifold labors, 
but his manifold cares, hinder the presence of 
God. Outwardly thou mayest be doing the 
work of thy calling; inwardly, if thou com- 
mend thy work to God, thou mayest be with 
Him in the third heaven!" 

In this age there is too much haste in our 
work, a spirit of unrest; a great lack of self- 
recollection, which destroys the contemplative 
life, the proper atmosphere for the growth of 
the soul. In the words of another, " In what- 
ever you are called upon to do, endeavor to 
maintain a calm, collected, and prayerful state 
of mind." Even in Church work, and in our 
efforts for the conversion of others, there is a 
tendency to work by ourselves, without asking 
for the guidance of the Spirit. 

As a devout writer has said : " He who is in 
what may be called a spiritual hurry, or rather 
who runs without having evidence of being 
spiritually sent, makes haste to no purpose." 
In all our work, both secular and religious, we 
should aim to possess the spirit of restful de- 
pendence, without which no work can be per- 



LENT 47 

fectly done. Bishop Wilkinson says in that 
most admirable book, " The Communion of 
Saints " — " How much time you and I have 
wasted through not working in this restful 
spirit! We have rushed from place to place, 
feeling that something must be done, and that 
we must go and do it, ourselves, that very 
moment! And afterward we found that if 
only we had first knelt down and committed 
it to God, the work would have been far 
better done." " Commit thy way unto the 
Lord, . . . and He shall bring it to pass." 
There is so much to be done, and so short a 
time to do it in, and sloth, one of the most in- 
sidious of the seven deadly sins, creeps in and 
often prevents our doing the very special work 
that God had assigned us. Or we allow the 
pleasures of the world so to stifle the inward 
hearing that when our Lord does speak we do 
not hear, and cannot answer, as Samuel 
did, " Speak, for thy servant heareth." In 
the General Confession we, alas! are often 
guilty of the sin we deplore: " We have left 
undone those things which we ought to have 
done." Says a thoughtful writer, " That part 
of our work which we have left undone may 



48 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHMSTIAIS" YEAB 

first be revealed to us at the end of a life filled 
up, as we had hoped, with useful employ- 
ments." 

All are not called to work for their daily 
bread, but because they are blessed with 
wealth, talents, and time for the performance 
of great deeds, of them " much shall be re- 
quired." For them there are vast opportuni- 
ties to carry out great plans for the conversion 
of the world, for the relief of the needy, for 
the building of churches and hospitals, and for 
the amelioration of the hard lot of their poorer 
brethren in Christ. The command, " Six days 
shalt thou labor," applies alike to all. Their 
work only differs in kind, for all members of 
the body have not the same office ; but all must 
work the works of Him who sent them into this 
world of sin. 

That we may not grow selfish for ourselves 
or family let our motto be, " Non ministrari 
sed ministrare ;" so when our little lives are 
ended we may say with our Blessed Lord, " I 
have finished the work which Thou gavest me 
to do;" and with St. Paul, " I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I have 
kept the Faith." Then when the holy angels 



LENT 49 

shall bear our redeemed souls through the 
golden gates into the rest that remaineth for 
the people of God, we shall hear those words of 
blessed assurance, " Well done, good and 
faithful servant, . . . enter thou into 
the joy of thy Lord." 



II. PEAYEE 

" More things are wrought by prayer than this 
world dreams of." 

"We have seen that our Lord's life was one of 
work, and we also know that as a man He lived 
a life of prayer and of communion with the 
Father and the unseen world. That life of 
prayer, that life of contemplation, is within the 
reach of even the humblest Christian who is 
in sacramental union with his Lord. A life 
that excludes prayer and religious meditation, 
no matter how busy and working a life it may 
be, is a fruitless one. It is like a mill in which 
all the machinery may be going, wheels and 
belts in rapid motion, but with no corn to be 
ground; hence there will be no result. There 
will be the noise and confusion, and the seem- 



50 THOUGHTS EOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

ing appearance of work, but the delicate parts 
of the mechanism only grate uselessly upon 
each other, and the purpose for which the mill 
was constructed is not fulfilled. 

There is a Russian legend which teaches a 
powerful lesson to those who place work above 
prayer, secular engagements before Church 
privileges and duties. The story tells how the 
three wise men, on their journey to the Holy 
Land, stopped to rest at a peasant's door; and 
there they told their sacred errand, and urged 
the mother to take her children and go with 
them to seek the Holy Child, saying: 

" * Who knows what blessings may befall 
If they but touch His garment's hem? 
And only once for them and all 
Will Christ be born at Bethlehem.' 

" ' Alas! I have so much to do,' 

The mother answered with a sigh, 
* I cannot journey now with you, 
But I will follow by and by.' " 

The wise men rode away, and all day the 
children pleaded with their mother to go, 
saying: 

" * And may we touch His pretty head, 

And may we kiss His blessed feet?' " 



LENT 51 

" But women still will bake and brew, 
No matter what sweet honors wait ; 
And petty tasks they still must do, 
Though angels tarry at the gate." 

As evening drew on, and the little house was 
in order, she started, but the wise men were out 
of sight, and the Star was gone. 

" Nor ever did her children see 

The Holy Babe they might have kissed." 

The Gospels furnish us with repeated in- 
stances of our Lord's engaging in prayer. It 
was with reference to His human nature that 
He felt the need of communion with God. 
St. Luke speaks of His praying at His Bap- 
tism, and then followed the forty days of fast- 
ing and prayer in the wilderness. St. Mark 
tells us that before He started on His mission- 
ary journey through Galilee, He rose up a 
great while before day, and departed to a 
solitary place and there prayed. Before se- 
lecting the twelve apostles we learn that He 
went to a mountain and continued all night in 
prayer. A recent writer has said, " To dance 
all night is deemed an enviable lot, and to work 
all night on some important task is considered 



52 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

highly creditable, but what would be thought 
now of a person who spent a whole night in 
prayer!" At the time of His glorious trans- 
figuration He went up into the mountain to 
pray. And it was in answer to that prayer that 
the veil was lifted, and the apostles were per- 
mitted to see what His glory should be when 
He would come again at the last day. We 
read that He prayed at the tomb of Lazarus, 
and to St. Peter He said, " I have prayed for 
thee." 

So entirely was His a life of prayer that the 
apostles asked Him to teach them to pray. 
And in answer to that request He gave them 
that prayer which countless millions daily use, 
the precious Pater Noster. In His own most 
perfect and wonderful prayer before His Pas- 
sion we see the depth of Divine love, the 
strength of purpose, and the sacrifice of self 
which characterized His earthly life. He 
prays for each one of us, that is, for His chosen 
apostles and all who should believe on Him 
through their means. And then came the 
prayer of agony in the garden, but it was a 
prayer of humble submission. "When He en- 
tered heaven He did not lay aside His habit of 



LEKT 53 

prayer, but even there " He ever liveth to 
make intercession " for us. 

The Bible, from beginning to end, is replete 
with encouragements and exhortations to 
prayer. Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Elijah, and 
David (who prayed seven times a day) are 
among the cloud of witnesses surrounding us, 
who testify to the efficacy of prayer. And then 
the teachings of Christ and His apostles, how 
they breathe the spirit of prayer in every page ! 
" Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my 
name, He will give it you." " Pray without 
ceasing." " Pray for us." " Pray one for an- 
other." " The effectual fervent prayer of a 
righteous man availeth much." " In every- 
thing by prayer and supplication with thanks- 
giving let your requests be made known unto 
God." But acceptable prayer, either for our- 
selves or others, must always be with the con- 
dition, " Thy will be done." As Bishop Hall 
says, " Prayer is not to bend God's will to ours, 
but to lift ours to God, and to call forth those 
gifts which He is more ready to give than we 
to ask." 

Prayer is truly the life of the soul. Without 
it the soul must languish and die. It is to 



54 THOUGHTS FOK THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

the spirit what light is to the physical sight. 
Bishop Wilson says: " He who has learnt 
to pray aright has got the secret of a holy life;" 
and St. Chrysostom: " Prayer is the haven to 
the shipwrecked mariner." 

There are two kinds of prayer, mental, and 
vocal or verbal. The first is defined as medita- 
tion or communion with God. Verbal prayer 
consists in presenting our petitions, in our own 
or others' words, to Almighty God. Though 
the Church teaches us to pray for ourselves, 
for our spiritual and temporal wants, yet the 
example of our Lord and His saints teaches us 
not to neglect to pray for others. St. Polycarp 
continued day and night praying in behalf of 
all mankind, and for the welfare of the 
Church, and all the saints spent hours on their 
knees. But surely it was for others and not 
for themselves alone that they prayed. 

" Wherefore let thy voice 
Kise like a fountain for me night and day, 
For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them 

friend. 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God! " 



LENT 55 

Dr. Pusey, that saint of modern times, 
teaches us that prayer for others is an indis- 
pensable duty, saying: 

" Intercession should spread through our 
lives, so as to become part of our being; when 
we have an interval in our occupations, when 
we are walking, when we cannot sleep by 
night, intercession should be the passion of our 
hearts. Let us cherish the inward life and 
make prayer more the end of our lives." 

The Christian has a power that the world 
knows not of, for prayer can annihilate the 
bounds of time, space, and condition. And 
though sundered by continents, or the grave 
itself, from those we love, prayer brings us to- 
gether. "When we know and believe this, why 
do we ever hesitate to act upon it? As Arch- 
bishop Trench says : 

" We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power, 
Why therefore should we do ourselves this 

wrong*, 
Or others, that we are not always strong*, 
That we are ever overborne with care, 
That we should ever weak or heartless be, 
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 
And joy, and strength, and courage are with 

Thee?" 



56 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

We can only learn to pray aright by the aid 
of the Holy Spirit, for it is He that helpeth our 
infirmities, and teacheth us what to pray for. 
" Prayer," says a holy writer, " is eminently 
the gift of God. Ask then continually from 
Jesus the power to ask. He offers up for you 
the poor earth-bound prayer, and joined to His 
intercession it mounts at once to God. He 
bears the golden censer, and much incense is 
there in it, even the prayers of all saints." But 
we must free ourselves from the worldly snares 
that entangle us, in order to hold communion 
with God. " He who would in his hour of 
prayer feel the presence of God, must taste 
lightly even of lawful pleasures." And Car- 
dinal Manning says: "We cannot go from 
strife and angry words to God." 

One who lives in habitual communion with 
God carries about him an atmosphere so pure 
and holy that it is discerned by those with 
whom he comes in contact. His life may be 
one of toil, but he has learned the secret of 
living the inner life; and the lowliest duties 
are no hindrance, as many think, to the high- 
est life of contemplation and sanctification. 
" Blessed are those holy hours," says Dr. 



LENT 57 

Pusey, " in which the soul retires from the 
world (as in Lent) to be alone with God. 
Learn to commune with Him in stillness, and 
He whom thou hast sought in stillness will be 
with thee when thou goest abroad." 

Mental prayer or meditation, that is, con- 
templation of God as distinct from the mere 
offering of petitions, can only be attained to 
slowly and by degrees, as the Christian makes 
progress in the knowledge of spiritual things. 
" For this contemplation we have to train 
ourselves; not as though we had already at- 
tained, or were already perfect. God knows 
how far from perfection we are ! But we are 
going on with our training, and God will con- 
tinue the education on the other side of the 
veil." 

In that highest act of prayer and worship, 
the offering of the Holy Eucharist, we are en- 
abled to contemplate and feed upon our Lord 
in the Blessed Sacrament. "We are then in 
close communion with God, and are more like 
the faithful departed who can meditate on the 
Divine attributes without the hindrances of 
the world, the flesh, and the devil. But we on 
earth, by frequent and devout communions, 



58 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

for which careful preparation has been made, 
may gain the power, little by little, to meditate 
more perfectly. 

Lent is the time appointed in which, being 
withdrawn from the world, we are to make 
such spiritual progress that when the precious 
season is over we may go back to the world, not 
to live on the same level as before, but upon a 
higher plane; not to indulge ourselves the 
more because of the forty days of fasting, but 
that strengthened by this special season of 
prayer, we may be less and less conformed to 
the world and her pursuits, living in it but not 
of it, doing our work because God has ap- 
pointed that man shall labor, yet giving our- 
selves more and more to prayer, so that when 
the last great day shall dawn, and we shall be 
called to enter into the eternal Easter-tide, we 
may be found clothed with the righteousness 
of Christ, and having been partakers of His 
Passion, we may be also partakers of His 
glorious Eesurrection. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOLY WEEK 

" Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Be- 
hold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My 
sorrow." — Lamentations i. 12. 

" From pain to pain, from woe to woe, 
With loving heart and footsteps slow, 
To Calvary with Christ we go. 
See how His Precious Blood 
At every station pours; 
Was ever grief like His? 
Was ever sin like ours?" 

The Lenten shadows deepen, and beneath 
the light of the Paschal moon, shining full 
upon us, we enter into the mystery of the 
Passion of our Blessed Lord. With bowed 
heads we contemplate the Cross, rising out of 
the sacred hill of Calvary, and on the Cross we 
behold, crowned with thorns, the immaculate 
Lamb of G-od, who taketh away the sins of the 
world. " Indeed," says a devout writer, " one 
scarcely ventures to speak or write much upon 



60 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

so sacred a subject. Christ's members should 
strive silently to realize it to themselves, fol- 
lowing our Blessed Lord in thought through 
the scenes of His suffering and death." 

Let us then, during this Holy Week, the 
Stille Woche, as the Germans appropriately 
call it, leave behind us all thoughts of the 
world, with its trifling vanities, its petty 
schemes, and false ambitions, and contemplate 
in awe the closing scenes in our Lord's earth- 
life, from His triumphal entrance on Palm 
Sunday into the city that He loved, until, 
wearied and exhausted, He slowly wended His 
way along the Via Sacra, passed through the 
gates of the city which had rejected Him, up 
to the Mount of Calvary. 

It was the week of the Passover. Thousands 
of pilgrims from all parts of Palestine were in 
and about the city, having come to keep the 
feast. As the Saviour started from Bethany 
with His disciples on that memorable Sunday 
afternoon, multitudes joined Him, eager to 
see the Nazarene Prophet, whose fame had 
spread far and wide, and had aroused the 
anger of the Scribes and Pharisees. As they 
accompany Him, strewing their palm-branches, 



HOLY WEEK 61 



and spreading even their garments in His way, 
they cry: " Hosanna to the Son of David; 
blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
Lord; Hosanna in the highest!" 

This was an earthly triumph; but how it 
pales before His triumphal entrance, ? mid 
choirs of cherubim and seraphim, angels and 
archangels, into the highest heavens, even to 
the right hand of God. 

Yet what to our Lord is this admiration of a 
fickle populace ! Though to-day they may cry 
" Hosanna!" ere four days have elapsed the 
voice of the people will be " Crucify Him, 
crucify Him ! " 

As the procession rounded the southern 
ridge of Mount Olivet, the beautiful city of 
Jerusalem and the magnificent temple with its 
golden pinnacles and domes lay spread out be- 
fore Him. " And when He was come near, 
He beheld the city and wept over it." He 
foresaw His rejection, His crucifixion, and the 
doom of the fair city. 

" If thou hadst known, even thou, at least 
in this thy day, the things which belong to thy 
peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." 
Not only for Jerusalem did Christ weep; He 



62 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

looked far adown the ages, and foresaw who, 
even to-day, should accept and who reject 
Him. 

On the two days following He again went 
into the city and taught the people, parrying 
the attack of those who would entangle Him 
in His talk, and answering so perfectly that 
from that time they asked no more questions. 

As He began His ministry by the eight 
Beatitudes, so He closed it by pronouncing the 
eight woes upon the Scribes, Pharisees, and 
hypocrites, ending them by that bitter, yearn- 
ing cry for the dear city of Jerusalem, which 
He had loved since His first boyhood visit to 
the temple. Ah! the pathos of that final ap- 
peal: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that 
killest the prophets, and stonest them which 
are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wing, and 
ye would not!" 

That evening, Tuesday, He left the city on 
His way to Bethany for the last time, and lin- 
gered long with His disciples upon the Mount 
of Olives, discoursing concerning the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, and the end of the world. 



HOLY WEEK 63 



A careful study of the Gospel narrative 
teaches us that the days following were spent 
in quiet and retirement to prepare for the last 
great conflict with the powers of evil. Wednes- 
day is memorable as being the day in which 
Judas covenanted to betray his Master for 
thirty pieces of silver! The afternoon of the 
next day the Saviour takes leave of the dear 
ones at Bethany, and with His chosen Twelve 
proceeds to the upper room in Jerusalem, 
where He desired to keep the Passover. 

What transcendent love and humility char- 
acterized Him when He bathed the feet of His 
disciples, fed them with His own Body and 
Blood, and then instituted for His Church that 
Heavenly Feast, of which the sacrificial Pass- 
over was but a type ! 

But again the darkness overshadows His 
Spirit, as a few days previous, when in the 
temple He had cried: " Father, save me from 
this hour." St. John says: " He was troubled 
in spirit, and testified, and said, verily, verily, 
I say unto you, that one of you shall betray 
me." After singing the closing Psalms of the 
Hallel, " Bind the sacrifice with cords, yea, 
even unto the horns of the altar," they went 



64 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

out into the night. Then followed that incom- 
parable discourse, and the great Eucharistic 
prayer, preserved for the Church by St. John; 
and after that conies the mysterious agony in 
the Garden of Gethsemane. Angels with 
bowed and veiled faces, scarce presumed to 
look upon such sorrow, when, lonely, as no 
human being ever knew loneliness, bowed by 
the weight of our sins, with no earthly sympa- 
thy, separated from His beloved Mother, He 
wrestled alone in such bitterness as none can 
ever dream of or imagine. " And being in 
agony He prayed more earnestly; and His 
sweat was as it were great drops of blood fall- 
ing down to the ground." How He craved 
sympathy in that dark hour ! He had said to 
Peter, James, and John: " My soul is exceed- 
ing sorrowful even unto death; tarry ye here 
and watch with Me." And they slept when 
they might have watched with the Son of 
God. But an angel from heaven appeared 
to strengthen Him. What a glorious mis- 
sion was that, which was fulfilled by the an- 
gel of Gethsemane ! 

" Called to convey, thou blest unnamed one, 
The Father's message to the suffering Son! " 



HOLY WEEK 65 



It is midnight, and our Lord is betrayed into 
the hands of sinners, and betrayed by a mark 
of affection from one of His chosen disciples. 
Strengthened by prayer, the Blessed Jesu 
goes majestically forth to suffer and to die. 
Like a common criminal, He is hurried from 
Annas to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and 
back to Pilate. He is reviled, He is mocked, 
He is scourged, He is crowned with thorns, He 
is condemned to death ! 

" He was oppressed and He was afflicted, 
yet He opened not His mouth; He is brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep be- 
fore her shearers is dumb, so He opened not 
His mouth." " He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; 
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; 
and with His stripes we are healed." 

" They bound Thy temples with the twisted thorn, 
Thy bruised feet went languid on with pain, 
Thy blood, from all Thy flesh with scourges torn, 

Deepened Thy robe of mockery's crimson 
grain ; 
Whose native vesture bright, 
Was the unapproach-ed light; 
The sandal of Whose foot the rapid hurricane." 
5 



66 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Oh, what a price it cost to redeem our souls ! 
So speedy, so hasty is the trial that by the third 
hour the sun shines down upon the crucified 
Son of God. Picture the awful scene; the 
ruthless soldiers and the jeering multitude; 
the agonizing grief of the Mother's heart as 
she stands and gazes upon her only Son; the 
terrified disciples, and the faithful women, all 
standing beneath the Cross whereon the Sav- 
iour hangs, between two transgressors of the 
law. " And He was numbered with the trans- 
gressors." 

" Before the Cross, whose cruel wood 
Upbears the dying* Son of God, 
To-day my only thought shall be: 
He died thereon for love of me! " 

The hours wear away, and from time to 
time a few words have fallen from those 
parched and suffering lips. Are they words of 
condemnation for those who crucified Him? 
Are they entreaties to be taken down from the 
Cross? Hark! He who created the millions of 
rolling worlds, He who could summon myriads 
of angels to His relief, speaks: " Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do." 



HOLY WEEK 67 



" To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." 
a Woman, behold thy Son; — behold thy 
Mother." " My God, My God, why hast Thou 
forsaken Me." " I thirst." " It is finished." 
" Father, into Thy hands I commend My 
spirit." 

Can we wonder that the centurion cried: 
" Truly this was the Son of God," and that the 
people beat their breasts and returned amazed 
to their homes, after witnessing these scenes. 
Even Nature uttered her protest in darkness 
and earthquake. 

" Lord of my heart, by Thy last cry, 

Let not Thy blood on earth be spent! 

Lo, at Thy feet I fainting lie, 

Mine eyes upon Thy wounds are bent, 

Upon Thy streaming wounds my w T eary eyes 
Wait like the parched earth on April skies. 

" call Thy wanderer home; 

To that dear home, safe in Thy wounded side, 
Where only broken hearts their sin and shame 
may hide." 

Yea, truly it was finished; and He, our rep- 
resentative, not merely our substitute, has in- 
deed borne the penalty of the sins of the world, 
and mankind is redeemed ! The climax of our 



68 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Lord's humiliation is now attained; there 
remains no more that jealous Sanhedrims can 
do; and the poor suffering body is at rest. 

" Ah, never since tears rolled — since human hearts 
Beat quick with hope, to break in blank despair, 
Lay love so wingless, faith so quite forlorn, 
As that dread day, on guilty Golgotha." 

All seems inexplicable defeat, but in reality 
all is eternal victory. The angels guard the 
sleeping body while the triumphant soul of 
the Blessed Jesus passes into the realms of de- 
parted spirits, and preaches liberty, light, and 
salvation to those awaiting His entrance. 

Glorious, indeed, is the revelation of Divine 
love displayed on the Cross of Christ. The 
darkness of eternal death no longer enshrouds 
our guilty race, but mercy, life, and peace 
shine over our pathway; and through the Cross 
we find an abundant entrance into that king- 
dom of love and joy which is now open to all 
believers. 



CHAPTEK YIII. 

EASTEK-TIDE 

" Christ is risen from the dead, and become the 
first-fruits of them that slept." — 1 Corinthians 
xv. 20. 

INTRODUCTION 

" The Resurrection of our Lord/' says the 
Rev. Vernon Staley, " is better attested than 
any fact in history." And this is not the rash 
statement of an enthusiast. The sceptic ac- 
cepts, with little or no proof, any fact in an- 
cient or modern history; yet, although the 
proofs of the Resurrection are overwhelming, 
he doubts and cavils, and suggests theories of 
phantoms, or spiritual resurrections, or the 
wild illusions of the overwrought imaginations 
of the disciples. Our Lord's own prophecies, 
the witness of more than five hundred persons, 
and the permanency of the Church itself, that 
pillar and ground of the truth, are all assur- 



70 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

ances of the fact, that on the first glorious 
Easter Christ rose triumphant from among the 
dead, bearing in His pierced hands the keys of 
hell and of death. 

The thoughts that come to us during this 
blessed Easter-tide are twofold: the Resur- 
rection of our Lord, hence, as a necessary se- 
quence, the resurrection of those who are mem- 
bers of His sacred body. 



I. 



THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 

" Shout aloud the wondrous story, 
For the King- in all His glory 

Draweth nigh this day! 
Vernal benediction giving, 
Christ the Life — the Ever-living 

On this Easter Day! 
Let the banners float before us, 
Send along the angel chorus — 
Christ is risen! He is risen! 

This is Easter Day." 

The Lenten shadows which culminated in 
the darkness of Good Friday, are fled away, 
and the rising of the Sun of Eighteousness 
gilds with roseate hues the cloudless sky of 



EASTER-TIDE 71 



Easter morning. Marvellous as was the won- 
drous joy of Christmas-tide, yet compared with, 
the glorious light of the Resurrection, it is as 
the early dawn to the full noon-tide splendor 
of the orb of day. The greatest event in the 
history of the world is the Eesurrection of our 
Blessed Lord. 

Thousands of years had rolled away since 
the first child of man lay dead, slain by his 
elder brother's hand. Since that time myriad 
generations had died, and their lifeless forms 
had been returned to mother earth ; but their 
souls, where are they? Man yearned to know 
that he was immortal; but how was he to 
prove it? Some few philosophers seemed to 
grasp the truth, but their reasoning was not 
accessible to the many. The Jews were taught 
it by their Scriptures; yet to the countless 
multitudes that inhabited our world, death was 
a terror which showed no bright side to its 
victims, and none could escape it. Ah! how 
dark was the cruel grave until that sad but 
blessed day, when loving hands laid the life- 
less form of the Crucified to rest in the silent 
tomb. But now, to the faithful, death is but 
the joyful entrance into the Paradise of God. 



72 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

" O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where 
is thy victory?" Can we wonder that the bur- 
den of the Apostles' preaching was " Jesus and 
the Resurrection?" Let us picture to our- 
selves the sorrow of the stricken disciples, after 
the sad burial rites were over, and they realized 
that He, whom they had acknowledged to be 
the Son of God, had been taken by cruel hands 
and slain. Imagine the sorrow of the gentle 
St. John, the anguish of the apostate St. Peter, 
and the grief of the faithful women. That 
first Easter Even, to us now so blessed a day, 
binding us, like All Saints' Day, with our dear 
departed, what was the anguish of that day to 
them! And yet, at this far distant time, we 
wonder that their faith was so dim, that our 
Lord's constant reiteration of the statement 
that He should rise again on the third day, 
should have made so little impression upon 
them. The Gospel does not tell us, yet we 
know that she who from the first " kept all 
these things and pondered them in her heart," 
must have been full of faith and hope even 
while bowed in sorrow. His spiritual Presence 
must have been with her, even though His 
body lay resting in the tomb. 



EASTER-TIDE 73 



Familiar, yet always new and replete with 
interest, is the story of the Resurrection. Very 
early, as it began to dawn, when the Sabbath 
was past, the loving women, Mary Magdalene, 
Mary, the mother of James, and Salome came 
with additional spices to embalm the body of 
their dear Master. But lo ! the stone had been 
rolled away by an angel, and the tomb was 
empty. While Magdalene hastened to inform 
the Apostles that the sacred body had been 
removed, a vision of angels appeared to the 
women, saying: " Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth 
which was crucified; He is risen; He is not 
here : behold the place where they laid Him." 
Fearing and trembling they hastened to com- 
municate the joyful tidings; then, probably 
after the visit of St. Peter and St. John to the 
sepulchre, the loving Magdalene returns to the 
place and stands outside weeping. She stoops 
down, and looks into the empty tomb, " and 
seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the 
head, and the other at the feet, where the body 
of Jesus had lain." How sympathetically they 
speak to her: " Woman, why weepest thou?" 
and her overburdened heart cries out: " Be- 
cause they have taken away my Lord, and I 



74 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

know not where they have laid Him." Then 
turning, she stands, albeit she knew it not, 
face to face with Him who had burst the bonds 
of death, and " brought life and immortal- 
ity to light." The first recorded word of the 
risen Lord was her name ! 

"Oh! A dear word 
Spoke first to me, and after me to all, 
That all may always know He is the Lord, 
And death is dead, and new times come for man; 
And heaven's ways justified, and Christ alive, 
Whom we saw die, nailed on the cruel cross! 
For while I lay there, sobbing at His feet, 
The word He spoke, My Lord, my King, my Christ! 
Was my name, ' Mary.' " 

Yes, Christ had arisen, early on the morning 
of the third day, even as He had said; and the 
prophecy of David: " Neither shalt Thou suf- 
fer Thy Holy One to see corruption," was ful- 
filled. Yain was the guard of soldiers, useless 
the seal which held the great stone. He had 
power to lay down His life, and He had power 
to take it again. He needed not that any 
should roll away the stone that closed the en- 
trance to the tomb, for naught material could 
now bar the progress of that risen Body. 



EASTER-TIDE 75 



" So left the glorious Body the rock it slumbered 

on, 
And spirit-like, in silence passed, nor touched the 

sealed stone. 
The angel came full early, but Christ had gone 

before, 
Not for Himself, but for His saints is burst the 

prison door." 

This wonderful, glorious Resurrection 
thrilled the world from pole to pole, and 
through the myriads of rolling orbs the an- 
gelic choirs hymn the joyful strain: " He is 
risen, He is risen !" 

" He who slumbered in the grave 
Is exalted now to save ; 
Now through Christendom it rings, 
That the Lamb is King of kings. 

Alleluia!" 

Very beautifully does the sainted Keble re- 
fer to the belief that He had already been with 
the holy Mary, His beloved mother. 

" And even as from His manger-bed He gave her 
His first smile, 
So now, while seraphs wait, He talks apart with 
her awhile." 

After the interview with Magdalene He 
appears to the women, saying to them : " All 



76 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

hail!" then to the loving but recreant Peter, 
after that to the two as they walked to Em- 
maus, and finally, in the evening, to the Apos- 
tles, assembled with closed doors for fear of the 
Jews. 

We love to dwell on each of the appearances 
of this first Easter, and very thrilling is the 
thought of our Blessed Lord joining Cleophas 
and his companion, drawing them out to speak 
of their feelings, and then expounding to them 
all the Scriptures concerning Himself. Oh, 
what a sermon that must have been ! No won- 
der their hearts burned within them as He 
spoke. " But their eyes were holden," and 
they did not know Him. Yet when He took 
bread and broke it, and gave it to them, they 
knew Him, and He vanished from their sight. 
So even now, to the humble soul kneeling be- 
fore the altar, is vouchsafed a realizing sense 
of His Presence in the breaking of bread. 

" Be known to us in breaking bread, 
But do not then depart; 
Saviour, abide with us, and spread 
Thy table in our heart." 

It was no time to rest; back to Jerusalem 
they hastened, eager to tell the others the 



EASTER-TIDE W 



glorious news, and are met by the glad tidings : 
" The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared 
to Simon." Then suddenly, the Lord Himself 
stood in their midst, saying: " Peace be unto 
you." " Then were the disciples glad when 
they saw the Lord." What must have been 
the rapture of that moment! The defeat they 
mourned was no defeat; it was eternal vic- 
tory and endless triumph. But alas! for St. 
Thomas, he was absent, and, like many another 
since his day, he missed the blessing of Easter. 
Yet, for " all things work together for good," 
the fact that his doubts were solved, when 
eight days after he beheld his Lord, gave 
weighty and additional testimony to the fact 
of the Eesurrection. 

For forty days our Blessed Lord remained 
on the earth before His Ascension, appearing 
at different times, and under different condi- 
tions, so that at times He was not immediately 
recognized. There are ten recorded instances 
of His appearances, and doubtless there were 
many more that are not mentioned. St. Luke 
says He showed Himself alive to the Apos- 
tles, whom He had chosen, " By many in- 
fallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, 



78 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

and speaking of the tilings pertaining to the 
kingdom of God." (Acts i. 3.) 

Before our Lord entered upon His ministry 
He fasted forty days, as a means whereby He 
might be prepared for the work which He had 
come into the world to perform. Thus it may 
be, that still being Man as well as God, He set 
apart forty days of strange mysterious prepara- 
tion, in this, His newly risen life, before enter- 
ing into heaven itself, into the glory which He 
had with His Father before the world was. 

But the season of the great forty days drew 
to a close, and again our Lord meets His dear 
ones and leads them out of Jerusalem, by the 
old familiar paths up the verdant slope to the 
summit of Mount Olivet. They with their 
understanding not yet illumined by the Holy 
Spirit, could not have foreseen that He was 
about to leave them, until having raised His 
pierced hands in blessing, He ascended in 
silent majesty amid choirs of angels, when a 
cloud received Him out of their sight. And 
now, at the right hand of God, He waits to wel- 
come us home, ever living to make intercession 
for us. Christ is risen ! Alleluia! 



EASTER-TIDE 79 



II. 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

" Oh, how glorious and resplendent, 

Fragile body, shalt thou be, 
When endued with so much beauty, 

Full of health, and strong, and free, 
Full of vigor, full of pleasure, 

That shall last eternally! " 

The fact of the Resurrection of our Blessed 
Lord is a pledge that those who are members 
of His sacred Body shall be raised in glory at 
the last day. In the Creed we say: " I look 
for the Resurrection of the dead, and the Life 
of the world to come." " This/' says a learned 
writer, " is the crucial point of the Christian's 
hope. It is the distinguishing tenet of Chris- 
tianity, as compared with other religions, that 
it extends this hope, and makes it an article of 
faith." Many religions, so-called, have taught 
in a way the continuance of existence, but none 
have given to their votaries the comforting be- 
lief that the body may also rest in hope. The 
heathen decorated the tombs of their departed 
with symbols of despair; we place on the grave 



80 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

a cross, the emblem of our faith, and plant 
sweet flowers, which, blooming with each re- 
turning spring, are symbolic of the resurrec- 
tion of the sleeping form beneath. 

" If a man die shall he live again ?" has been 
the cry of suffering humanity for thousands of 
years. " Man's heart and flesh cry out for the 
living God; they claim the Resurrection; they 
ask to see life — the whole of life — bloom, as a 
flower, according to the fancy of the old 
alchemists, might be raised from its ashes." 

Where and how are we really taught that 
the body shall rise again? Reasoning from 
analogy, though it may strengthen and con- 
firm a belief, is of course not an absolute proof. 
Yet a thoughtful study of nature, that un- 
spoken word of the Lord, reveals a resurrection 
in all her works. What is sleep but the twin 
brother of death! Outwardly we die each 
night, and rise to life again in the morning. 
The seed, that simile so aptly used by St. Paul, 
which contains the germ of the future plant, 
must be buried and die, in order to bring forth 
the new life. The insignificant worm dies to 
the light, yet from out its tomb it bursts forth 
a radiant and winged creature. 



EASTER-TIDE 81 



"Lo, on the turf, the empty cocoon lay! 

But from its gloom, up towards the perfect light, 

Had soared on wings with gold and crimson 

wrought, 
The once dull life that trod earth's dusty way." 

Again, nature wrapped in her snowy 
shroud, through the long, dreary winter, 
springs into full life under the genial rays of 
the vernal sun. 

" Countless types of resurrection 
We may see in every sod; 
Germ and grass blade in perfection 
Eise in perfect proof of God, 

And that life from death shall be evermore a 
verity." 

But we need not depend on nature when we 
have spoken revelations as a guide. The direct 
assertions in regard to the resurrection of the 
body in the Old Testament are not numerous, 
but our Lord Himself uses in His argument 
with the Sadducees the following: " And as 
touching the dead that they rise; have ye not 
read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God 
spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, but the 
God of the living; ye therefore do greatly err/' 
In another place we read of "one like the simil- 



82 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

itude of the sons of men," saying to Daniel: 
" And many of them that sleep in the dust of 
the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, 
and some to shame and everlasting contempt." 
And David in the Psalter for the ninth day, 
speaking of the dead, declares that " the right- 
eous shall have dominion over them in the 
morning." But the most triumphant assertion 
of a belief in the resurrection of the flesh in 
the Old Testament is that inspired utterance 
of God's servant Job, of whom He declared, 
" there is none like him in the earth, a perfect 
and an upright man." Familiar to us all is the 
use the Church makes of his w r ords in the 
burial service, where the priest, speaking in 
the name of the departed, as he walks before 
the casket, says: " I know that my Eedeemer 
liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth. And though, after my skin, 
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall 
I see God; Whom I shall see for myself, and 
mine eyes shall behold and not another." 

Then examine the teachings of the New 
Testament before our Lord's Eesurrection. 
His conversation with the Sadducees, and His 
words to Martha, all declare a resurrection of 



EASTER-TIDE 83 



the flesh, not a mere spiritual arising. Again, 
referring to the Burial Service, we have the 
opening sentence in the very words which He 
spoke to Martha, and still speaks to all mourn- 
ers through His priests. " I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life, saith the Lord : he that be- 
lieveth in Me though he were dead yet shall 
he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in 
Me shall never die." 

The burden of the apostles' preaching was 
the Resurrection. Take the fifteenth chapter 
of Corinthians, and carefully study every text 
that bears upon the subject. Also notice in 
the eighth chapter of Romans, " We ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop- 
tion, to wit, the redemption of our body." 

In the other Epistles, and in the Revelation 
of St. John, we have a most abundant supply 
of proof texts, showing that we must appear 
in our bodies before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, to be punished or rewarded for the 
deeds done in the body. 

Believing that we shall rise again, the ques- 
tion comes to us, as asked by St. Paul: " But 
some man will say, how are the dead raised up? 
and with what body do they come?" 



84 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

First. The initiatory rite which admits us 
into the Catholic Church is Baptism; " where- 
in," says the Catechism, " I was made a mem- 
ber of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor 
of the kingdom of heaven." Here we have the 
key-note of the resurrection of the dead. 
Where the head of a body is, there must the 
several members be. Christ, the Head, rose 
and entered into glory, hence those who are a 
part of Him must rise and enter upon a new 
life. Our membership in His Mystical Body 
is continued and preserved by feeding upon 
His most sacred Body and Blood, really and 
truly given unto us in the Holy Eucharist. 
Notice the sentence pronounced by the priest 
as he delivers the consecrated wafer into our 
hands: " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ 
which was given for thee, preserve thy body 
and soul unto everlasting life." It is not mere- 
ly our spiritual life that is here fed ; our bodies 
also are made one with His Mystical Body; 
we are partakers of His Flesh and Blood. The 
same words are said as the chalice is adminis- 
tered: " The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ 
which was shed for thee preserve thy body 
and soul unto everlasting life." 



EASTER-TIDE 85 



Eight here comes in a thought which must 
be apparent to any candid mind. Our bodies 
need the holy Food; but if they have already 
been supplied by other food, the heavenly 
Manna loses, as a type, its full significance. 
So rightly, the Catholic Church, since the days 
of the Apostles, has bidden her children come 
to that holy Feast ere they have partaken of 
earthly food. Thus a belief in the resurrection 
teaches frequent and devout Communions, 
that we may become closer and closer members 
of that sacred Body, which is our pledge of 
eternal glory. 

Further, as to the means by which the faith- 
ful shall be raised, St. Paul says: " He which 
raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also 
by Jesus/' Again he says: " He that raised 
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken 
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth 
in you." 

Seeing that Nature and the Bible teach the 
resurrection of the dead, and that the means 
whereby we shall be raised are Christ and the 
Holy Spirit, we are brought to a third thought 
above quoted, " And with what body do they 
come?" 



86 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

One thing we do know, for the Psalmist de- 
clares: " When I awake up after thy likeness, 
I shall be satisfied with it," and we pray that 
our vile body may be fashioned like unto His 
glorious Body. 

We know that flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God, but St. Paul teaches us 
that our bodies are to be changed. " This cor- 
ruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality." For " as 
we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly." 

The body of our risen Lord was not bound 
by the laws of time and space; like a spirit, He 
came and went, vanishing or appearing as He 
pleased. He needed not to be sustained by 
food, yet He partook of both fish and honey- 
comb. In appearance His Body was the same, 
that is in form and feature. So our risen bodies 
will bear our own likeness, the likeness which 
our spirits have impressed upon them. 

" For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form and doth the body make." 

" We shall," says a writer previously 
quoted, " carry our individuality into the next 



EASTER-TIDE 87 



world. We shall be identically the same per- 
sons that we are now. Hence that life is not so 
much another as this one prolonged. The life 
of the world to come begins in this world." 

" O, mortal form of heavenly birth, 
Thou shalt arise, arise from earth, 
Fleeting thy rest in dust shall be 
Born heir of immortality." 

Sceptics concerning the resurrection claim 
that the body, changed into dust, or scattered 
to the four winds, cannot resume the same 
atoms and particles of which it was formed 
when consigned to mother earth. This weak 
objection is easily refuted. For the body we 
possess in youth and age contains not one atom 
that existed there when we were children. 
Yet do we not feel and say : " This is my body, 
the same that I have always inhabited ? " Iden- 
tity of matter does not of necessity constitute 
the same body. Faith and science need never 
conflict, and with God all things are possible. 

Said a deep thinker upon scientific subjects, 
just before his death: " Yes, there is hope for 
the flesh, then the spirit of the matter becomes 
a part of the essence of the spirit of the Ego, 



88 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHEISTIAK YEAR 

thus, and only thus, a glorified body, an ab- 
sorption of the earthly spirit by the celestial. 
Thus are we raised from the dead." 

In the words of a devout writer, shortly be- 
fore her entrance into the unseen world : " We 
shall look into the same deep eyes, and clasp 
the same warm hands, and walk on beside the 
same beloved beings we have known here, our 
transfigured lives forever young with the 
youth of the angels." What the endless joy 
of that risen-lif e will be none yet may know. 
Keble says : 

" What is the heaven our God bestows ? 
No prophet yet, no angel knows; 
Was never yet created eye 
Could see across eternity." 

" It doth not yet appear what we shall be: 
but we know that, when He shall appear, we 
shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He 
is." Then the purified body shall become the 
vehicle of the perfected soul, and man will 
have attained to his true destiny. The saints 
in Paradise look forward with patient but 
longing expectation for the joyful day to 
which we are hastening: 



EASTER-TIDE 89 



" On the Kesurrection morning 
Soul and body meet again; 
No more sorrow, no more weeping, 
No more pain. 

" Soul and body re-nnited 
Thenceforth nothing can divide, 
Waking up in Christ's own likeness 
Satisfied. 

81 Oh, the beauty, oh, the gladness 
Of that Eesurrection Day, 
Which shall not through endless ages 
Pass away! " 



OHAPTEE IX. 

THE ASCENSION 

" I will arise, and in the strength of love 
Pursue the bright track ere it fade away, 
My Saviour's pathway to His home above." 

In order to strengthen our belief in the 
supernatural, the veil which separates us from 
the other world is from time to time lifted, in 
the sacred records; celestial messengers are 
permitted to make themselves visible to mortal 
sight; or through the prophetic visions of the 
seers, we are allowed to gaze within the heav- 
enly portals. From the Scriptures we learn 
of the care which the angels have over us, and 
of the intense joy and interest with which they 
watch our earth. 

They, who shouted with joy at the creation, 
announced the Nativity, and appeared in the 
heavens singing glorias; were present at the 
Resurrection, and finally came in myriads to 
accompany our Blessed Lord when the battle 



THE ASCENSION 91 



having been fought and the victory won, He 
ascended in radiant glory far above all prin- 
cipalities and powers, to sit upon the right hand 
of the Ancient of Days ! 

" A radiant cloud is now Thy seat, 
And earth lies stretched beneath Thy feet, 
Ten thousand thousands round Thee sing, 
And share the triumph of their King." 

Many are the thoughts which cluster around 
this, the most glorious event within the realm 
of our knowledge. We learn of the Ascension 
from the prophecies in Daniel, and in the 
Psalms, and from its types, as seen in the trans- 
lation of Enoch, and the going up of Elijah, 
that it was an event of transcendent im- 
portance. The falling of Elijah's mantle, and 
the bestowal of his spirit upon Elisha, was an 
emblem of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon 
the disciples, after the Ascension. We learn 
from the Psalms what were the glorious words 
of welcome which rang through the courts of 
Heaven, as the triumphal procession of our 
Lord and His angelic host swept through the 
starry firmament. 

Let us contemplate for a moment the historic 
event as seen on its earthward side. The 



92 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN TEAR 

fortieth day after the Resurrection has arrived; 
our Blessed Lord meets His chosen, and leads 
them out beyond Bethany, that village so often 
honored by His presence, to Mount Olivet, a 
Sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem. Even 
those closest in thought and sympathy to Him, 
could have had but faint realization that He 
was going away, in order that the Comforter 
might come to illuminate their dull under- 
standing, and lead them into all truth. Until 
the Holy Spirit should come upon them more 
fully, they were unable to comprehend spirit- 
ual mysteries. 

For the last time the Master and His dis- 
ciples walk along those familiar paths. He 
gives to them final directions concerning the 
things which pertain to the kingdom of God. 
Then He assembles them upon the mount; 
and overflowing with love for his dear disciples 
and for all who should believe on Him through 
them, He raises those pierced hands in Divine 
blessing. Then the Son of Man and Son of 
God rises by His own power up into the bright 
blue vault of heaven. Awe-struck, dumb with 
amazement, even the impulsive Peter finds no 
words to say. They silently gaze upon the fast 



THE ASCEKSIOK 93 

receding f orm, and see His dear hand still out- 
stretched in benediction upon the world that 
had rejected Him. A cloud receives Him out 
of their sight; and still they gaze entranced in 
heart-felt worship, and lofty contemplation. 
Then angels in shining garments, sent back by 
the Triumphant King, announce to them that 
He who had promised to be with them to the 
end of the world, and had bade them wait at 
Jerusalem for the promised gift, would Him- 
self come again in like manner, that is with 
the clouds and the angelic hosts. 

And then the disciples, no longer doubting, 
but full of joy, knowing Christ no more after 
the flesh, but after the Spirit, returned to Jeru- 
salem with the gentle and holy Mary, to wait 
for the descent of the Paraclete. 

Very brief is the Gospel record of this, the 
greatest event in our Lord's incarnate life; but, 
hark! what song of praise is it that welcomes 
home the King of earth and heaven, and is 
wafted back to us, expectant and trembling 
mortals? 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift 
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory 

shall come in. 



94 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and 
mighty; even the Lord mighty in battle. 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift 
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory 
shall come in. 

Who is the King of glory? Even the Lord of 
hosts, he is the King of glory. 

clap your hands together, all ye people ; shout 
unto God with the voice of triumph. 

For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great 
King over all the earth. 

God is gone up with a shout; the Lord with the 
sound of a trumpet. 

Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises 
unto our King, sing praises. 

God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon 
the throne of his holiness. 

Onward and upward sweeps the grand 
pageant, and then is vonchsaf ed to us, through 
the vision of Daniel, the heavenly aspect of the 
Ascension : 

" I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like 
the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, 
and came to the Ancient of Days and they brought 
Him near before Him. 

And there was given Him dominion and glory, 
and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and lan- 
guages should serve Him; His dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and 
His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." 



THE ASCENSION 95 

Who is it that sits upon that exalted throne 
at the right hand of God? Very firmly must 
we grasp the belief that it is the Son of Man, 
as well as the Son of God. It is our Saviour, 
born of a pure Virgin, our Elder Brother, that 
is there ever to intercede for us, until on that 
day, when He shall come again with clouds 
and ineffable glory, to be our Judge. 

" He has raised our human nature 
On the clouds to God's right hand. 
There we sit in heavenly places, 
There with Him in glory stand, 
Jesu reigns, adored by angels; 
Man with God is on the throne; 
Mighty Lord, in Thine Ascension, 
We by faith behold our own." 

All has been accomplished, the Nativity, 
the Agony, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, 
the Ascension, are facts, and He Who was de- 
spised and rejected of men, and crowned with 
thorns, is now crowned with glory, and prays 
that we may be with Him in that glory. 

" Crown Him the Lord of peace! 
Whose power a sceptre sways, 
In heaven and earth that wars may cease, 
And all be prayer and praise, 



96 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

His reign shall know no end, 
And round His pierced feet 
Fair flowers of Paradise extend, 
Their fragrance ever sweet." 

Shall those who profess and call themselves 
Christians, on such a day, the day of our Lord's 
exaltation, fail to render Him His due wor- 
ship? When angels, whom He never re- 
deemed, fall down and worship Him, shall we 
be unmindful of our holy obligation and privi- 
lege to adore Him where He is to be found on 
His Altar Throne? 

Shall we not join in spirit with the whole 
company of heaven, with angels and saints, in 
one grand anthem of praise, saying : " Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power 
and riches, and wisdom and strength, and hon- 
or and glory and blessing." 

One special thought is voiced in our medi- 
tation upon the Ascension. It is the solemn 
truth, that as He went, so He will return. 
That day is not revealed, yet many devout 
hearts who are in touch with the secrets of the 
other world, seem already to hear the gather- 
ing together of the angelic hosts, the reading 
of the roll-call of the great army of heaven, 



THE ASCENSION 9? 

the preparations for the sound of the last 
trump; and they believe that not very far dis- 
tant is the time when the sign of the Son of 
Man will appear in the heavens. 

" Thou art coming, O my Saviour, 
Thou are coming, O my King, 
In Thy beauty all resplendent 
In Thy glory all transcendent; 
Well may we rejoice and sing; 
Coming! In the opening east 
Herald brightness slowly swells. 
Coming! Oh, my glorious Priest, 
Hear we not Thy golden bells?" 



CHAPTEE X. 

WHITSUN DAY 

(Fiesta del Espirito Santo) 

" One, the descending Flame, 

But many were the tongues of fire, 
From one bright heaven they came, 

But here and there in many a spire, 
In many a living line they sped 
To rest on each anointed head. 
There, as yon stars in clearest deep of night, 
The glory-crowns shone out in many-colored light." 

In this blessed feast of the Holy Spirit, 
which is the birthday of the Catholic Church, 
the culmination of our Lord's Incarnation is 
attained. He ascended that the Third Person 
of the Ever Blessed Trinity might come down 
to earth and abide in the Church, uniting its 
members one with another, and all to the great 
Head, that we might be led into all knowledge, 
truth, and holiness forever. 

The world keeps the feast of the Nativity, 



WHITSUK DAY 99 



and of the Resurrection; Christmas and Easter 
are names with which even the irreligious may 
be familiar; but the world knows not, and 
cares not, for the Pentecostal season — only 
the spiritual can delight in the refreshment of 
that day. 

" The natural man receiveth not the things 
of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness 
unto him; neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned." What does 
he who has always been blind know of the 
variations of color and light? Or what can 
one who is born deaf know of the subtle har- 
monies of music? And how can one whose 
soul is nourished by no spiritual food compre- 
hend the joy of devout hearts, who abound in 
hope and love in the Holy Ghost? Thus it is 
that Whitsun Day, or Pasqua Rosata, as the 
Italians call it, is dear to the Church alone, 
and the world meddles not with the joy of that 
day. 

" What greater gift, what greater love, 
Could God on man bestow? 
Angels for this rejoice above, 
Let man rejoice below." 

The Hebrew Scriptures are not lacking in 



100 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

prophecies of the great Gift which should be 
sent to mankind. As in the sixty-eighth 
Psalm : " Yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove 
that is covered with silver wings, and her 
feathers like gold." And again: " Thou art 
gone up on high, Thou hast led captivity cap- 
tive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for 
Thine enemies, that the Lord God might dwell 
among them." 

Then how instantaneously was the following 
prophecy fulfilled, after the outpouring of the 
Spirit: " The Lord gave the Word, great was 
the company of the preachers." 

The great event was also clearly foreseen 
by Joel, and the power of the Spirit was re- 
ferred to by Ezekiel and others, while Isaiah 
enumerates six of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. 

For ten days the little company of believers, 
with the Holy Mother, waited in that upper 
room, spending the hours in prayer and sup- 
plication for the Promised Comforter. 

" As yet they but their vigil hold, 
Not yet the Whitsun flowers unfold 
Their full bright splendors. In the sky 
The third hour's sun must ride full high, 
Ere to the holy, glorious room 
The fires of new Creation come; 



WHITSUN DAY 101 



Ere on weak hearts, though willing, fall 
The rushing, mighty wind, in all 
The power of its dread harmony, and win, 
Ne'er to lie down, true echoes from within." 

Seven times seven days (a week of weeks), 
in reference to the sevenfold Spirit of God, 
had passed since the Resurrection, and Pen- 
tecost was " fully come." Throughout Holy 
Writ occurs the sacred number of seven. 
The rest on the seventh day, the seven candle- 
sticks, the seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer, 
the seven words from the Cross, and the in- 
numerable instances which occur in the Book 
of the Revelation, seem all to possess the same 
signification. 

So graphic is the description of the outpour- 
ing of the Spirit upon the infant Church, as 
given in the Acts of the Apostles, that the 
imagination loves to dwell upon the wonderful 
scene. The sound, like a rushing, mighty 
wind, the cloven tongues, the supernatural ut- 
terances vouchsafed to all, the amazement of 
the beholders, the mocking of the uncon- 
verted, St, Peter's great sermon, the convic- 
tion of his hearers, the Baptism of the three 
thousand souls, all followed in quick succes- 



102 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

sion. " The Spirit of the Lord filleth the 
world, and that which containeth all things 
hath knowledge of the Voice." 

What a contrast the betrayal, the cowardly 
denial, and the forsaking of our Lord present 
when placed side by side with the intrepid con- 
duct of the newly inspired Apostles! What 
greater proof of the indwelling presence of the 
Spirit could be vouchsafed, than is seen in the 
miracles, the gift of tongues, the powerful 
preaching, the insight into Scriptures, and the 
willingness to suffer and die for the Lord 
Jesus, that animates the Apostles and dis- 
ciples ! From that little room they went forth, 
endued with supernatural power, to convert 
the world, and through them we have been 
brought from darkness and error into the true 
light. 

The Holy Spirit was no transient guest, but 
came to abide in the Church forever. He is 
present in Baptism, He descends in sevenfold 
power at Confirmation, bestowing on us these 
precious gifts: Wisdom, whereby the myste- 
ries of heavenly things are revealed to us; 
Understanding, whereby our minds are en- 
lightened; Counsel, which imparts to us a 



WHITSUN DAY 103 



right judgment; Ghostly Strength, to en- 
dure and suffer; Knowledge, to perceive the 
Will of God; Godliness, through which we 
hunger and thirst after righteousness; Holy 
Fear, that teaches us to shun sin for fear of 
losing the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

In studying the Epistles, one is impressed 
with the very large number of references to 
the work of the Holy Ghost. By His influence 
love is shed abroad in our hearts : through Him 
we abound in hope, and are full of joy and 
peace, finding true liberty. We learn that we 
are sealed with the Spirit of Promise, even un- 
to the day of redemption. Only by His aid 
can we pray aright; in Him we have fellow- 
ship, are sanctified, and receive the washing 
of regeneration. Through His grace we have 
communion with the departed saints. It is 
the Spirit who imparts to us the Christ Life, 
for it is by His power that the creatures of 
bread and wine become the Body and Blood 
of Jesus Christ. But when one who has 
known the Holy Spirit, and has tasted of the 
powers of the world to come, goes astray, what 
says the Apostle? If they fall it is impossible 
to renew them again to repentance. 



104 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Blessed indeed to the Church as a body, and 
to individuals as members, has been the ful- 
filment of our Lord's gracious promise to 
send to us a Comforter who should lead us into 
all truth. It is not of Himself, the Blessed 
Spirit speaks, but it is Christ whom He glori- 
fies. " For," said our Lord, " He shall receive 
of Mine, and shall shew it unto you." 

The Church teaches us to render due hom- 
age to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, 
and in the Creed we say: " Who with the 
Father and the Son together is worshipped 
and glorified." But do individuals fully grasp 
the truth that He is a real Person, and not 
merely a Love or Force proceeding from the 
Father to the Son? That He really dwells 
within each pure and contrite heart, and that 
our bodies are His temples? 

" And His the gentle voice we hear, 
Soft as the breath of even, 
That checks each thought, that calms each fear, 
And speaks of heaven." 

Loving, persuasive, and tender is the min- 
istry of the Spirit, yet in stern and awful warn- 
ing stands the most terrible threat that can be 



WHITSUK DAY 105 



found in Holy Writ, for him who rejects His 
Voice, and it falls from the tender lips of our 
Saviour: " Whosoever speaketh against the 
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, neither in the world to 
come." That is the one final sin, for whoso- 
ever commits it is so hardened, so lost, that he 
cannot repent. 

All nature seems fairer and brighter to the 
soul with whom dwells the Blessed Spirit. 
There are heavenly tints in the sunsets, celes- 
tial shades of blue on sky and ocean; every 
blade of grass, and every viewless wind that 
blows, speak of the gentle influences of the all- 
pervading and all-embracing Spirit. 

" How do wild Nature's chords by thee 
Combined in varying melody, 
Make tunes for holy times." 

And when the eye of faith is thus purged 
of this world's desire for glitter and show, and 
has learned to look with love upon humanity 
and nature as all redeemed by the Christ and 
sanctified by the Spirit; and when the soul 
can yield in everything to the Divine Will, 
then its task on earth is finished, its warfare is 



106 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

accomplished, and to such a one the call will 
soon come to enter into the glorious rest that 
remaineth for the people of God. 

" O loving Spirit, gently lay 
Thine arm on ours when we would stray! 
Prepare us with Thy warnings sweet, 
Us and our little ones, to greet 
Thy visitations dread and dear! 
Grant us, when holy times are near, 
In twilight, or of morn or eve, 
Thy dove-like whisperings to receive, 
And own them kindlier for the plaintive mood, 
That breathes of contrite love, mild hope, and 
joy subdued." 



CHAPTEK XL 

TEINITY SUNDAY 

u When heaven and earth were yet unmade, 
When time was yet unknown, 
Thou, in Thy bliss and majesty, 
Didst live and love alone. 

How wonderful creation is, 

The work that Thou didst bless; 

And, oh, what then must Thou be like, 
Eternal Loveliness! 

Most ancient of all mysteries, 

Low at Thy throne we lie, 
Have mercy now, most Merciful, 

Most Holy Trinity!" 

The reception of truth must be gradual. 
The Church leads us step by step from Advent 
to Trinity Sunday. In Advent is heralded the 
miraculous Birth of a wondrous Child; at 
Christmas the heavenly host proclaims from 
the starry firmament " the good tidings of 
great joy;" on Epiphany the Christ is mani- 
fested to the Gentiles; through Lent we enter 



108 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN TEAR 

into our Saviour's Temptation; in Gethsem- 
ane we witness His agony; on Good Friday 
we see the God-Man die for us, and are forced 
to cry with the centurion, " Truly this was the 
Son of God ! " On the glorious Feast of Easter 
we see Him rise triumphant from the grave, 
" bearing in His pierced hands the keys of hell 
and of death." Then, on Holy Thursday, we 
behold His glorious Ascension to the highest 
heavens, there to sit at the right hand of the 
Father; while on Whitsun-day we are taught 
that the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, 
has come to dwell in the Church and in our 
hearts forever ! 

Thus does the Church prepare us for the 
culmination of her teaching, enabling us to 
grasp by faith the mystery of the doctrine of 
the Trinity. 

" Along the Church's central space 
The sacred weeks with unf elt pace, 
Have borne us on from grace to grace." 

But such a profound and unfathomable 
mystery none can dare contemplate without 
awe and humility. Sinful creatures must pros- 
trate themselves where even " angels bow and 



TRIKITY SUNDAY 109 

archangels veil their faces." The Trinity in 
Unity is the highest mystery that is revealed 
to us. We can know nothing of God save as 
He reveals it. He is the True Light. And as 
a single ray of pure, white light is one and 
entire, yet may be separated into its three 
primary colors, each one glowing in its own 
beauty, so do we behold in our God, Three 
Holy Persons, who are yet one in their in- 
effable beauty and Majesty, one in Substance 
and equal in Power and Glory. " The doc- 
trine of the Trinity is the verity of the Gos- 
pel," says one of our bishops. What is the 
doctrine of the Trinity? Are we taught it 
in the Old and New Testaments? Can we 
learn it by analogy? Do we know it subjec- 
tively by our inner spiritual consciousness, as 
strengthened by faith? 

" The Catholic Faith is this: That we wor- 
ship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. 
Neither confounding the Persons, nor divid- 
ing the substance." Thus speaks that bulwark 
of our Faith, the Athanasian Creed. 

The Scriptures reveal no doctrine more 
plainly than that of the Trinity. Take the 
very first verse of the first chapter of Genesis: 



110 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

" In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." In the original, the noun is 
in the plural number, indicating more than one 
Person. In the second verse we read, " The 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." In the same chapter it is said, " Let 
us make man in Our image, after Our like- 
ness;" and in the third chapter, the Messiah 
is promised to Eve. In the vision of Isaiah, 
the prophet saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, 
high and lifted up, and heard the seraphim 
with their veiled faces hymning the Trisagion, 
" And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, 
Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts." The Psal- 
ter, also, is replete with references to the 
Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. In the 
New Testament, from St. Matthew to the 
Revelation of St. John, this doctrine is most 
plainly taught. At the Annunciation, God 
the Father sends the angel Gabriel to an- 
nounce the Incarnation of God the Son, by the 
power of God the Holy Ghost. At the Bap- 
tism of our Blessed Lord, the Father speaks 
from heaven, the Holy Spirit descends in the 
form of a dove and rests upon the Son, and 
thus are the three Persons openly revealed. 



TRINITY SUNDAY 111 

Our Lord promises the Holy Spirit, who shall 
come from the Father, and He also commands 
that all Baptisms shall be performed in the 
Name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost. The sacred number of three, 
which runs like a golden thread through all 
Holy Writ, is symbolical of the Trinity, as 
the number seven is a type of the sevenfold 
Spirit. 

Throughout the Epistles this doctrine is so 
plainly taught that none, save the wilfully 
blind, can study them and yet reject the truth. 
" There are three that bear record in heaven, 
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; 
and these three are one." And again: " The 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of 
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, 
be with you all." No one can refute the teach- 
ing of the Gospels and Epistles on this subject. 
They are incontrovertible. 

Then study that vision which that saint of 
saints beheld when in exile in the isle of Pat- 
mos : " Behold a throne was set in heaven, and 
One sat on the throne. And He that sat was to 
look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, 
and there was a rainbow round about the 



112 THOUGHTS EOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

throne like unto an emerald." St. John saw 
the same rainbow that Ezekiel did, of which 
our earthly one is a type ; for our bow of prom- 
ise is an earnest of the glory which shall be 
revealed, a glimpse as it were of heavenly 
things. But further: " There were seven 
lamps of fire burning before the throne, which 
are the seven Spirits of God." Like Isaiah, 
St. John sees the living creatures with their 
six wings, who rest not day nor night, saying 
" Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." 
And then, O wondrous sight, the seer beholds 
in the midst of the throne " a Lamb as it had 
been slain." Ah! is not this He who was 
slain for us from the foundations of the world? 
The Apostle gazes upon the vision, and the 
whole company of heaven prostrate themselves 
before the Lamb, whose seven horns and seven 
eyes represent the sevenfold Spirit of God, 
which is sent forth unto all the earth. 

" The four beasts and four and twenty eld- 
ers fell down before the Lamb, having every 
one of them harps, and golden vials full of 
odors, which are the prayers of saints." Heark- 
en to their heavenly song: " Thou art worthy 
to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; 



TKINITY SUKDAY 113 

for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to 
God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and 
tongue, and people and nation.'' And then St. 
John sees many angels joining with the elders: 
" And the number of them was ten thousand 
times ten thousand and thousands of thou- 
sands; saying, with a loud voice: i "Worthy is 
the Lamb that was slain.' " In addition to all 
this : " Every creature which is in heaven and 
on the earth, and under the earth, and such as 
are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, 
saying, i Blessing, and honor, and glory, and 
power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the 
throne, and unto the Lamb forever and 
ever!'" 

What part or lot in this heavenly adoration 
can those have who would rob our Lord Jesus 
Christ of His divinity, His equality with God 
the Father? Surely there is no place for them 
among the company of the redeemed. 

Can we learn anything in regard to this mys- 
tery by analogy? Each individual consists of 
soul, body, and spirit, yet they constitute but 
one man. Our mental nature possesses intel- 
lect, affections, and will. The family is rep- 
resented by father, mother, and child (or chil- 
8 



114 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

dren). In nature there are three great 
divisions : 

" Earth's triple frame, land, air, and sea 
Upraise their canticle to Thee." 

But to the children of the Church, trained 
in holy teaching, fed at her altar with heavenly 
food, there is a great and profound proof, the 
subjective knowledge that comes from faith. 
" No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but 
by the Holy Ghost." Yes, it is the Blessed 
Spirit that gives to us such wisdom and knowl- 
edge that we can comprehend heavenly mys- 
teries. Argument and reason are of little 
weight before the powerful and convincing 
knowledge which faith inculcates. " We know 
in whom we have believed." Faith lifts us up 
to heavenly places, where we may see and hear 
such marvellous things that the siren voices of 
this world are drowned forever. " It listens 
for the notes of heaven, the faint echoes which 
scarcely reach the earth, and it thinks them 
worth all the louder sounds of cities or of 
schools of men." 

" The greater height our graces reach, 
The clearer they the mystery teach; 



TRINITY SUNDAY 115 

Saints, best in their own souls may read 
The illustration of their creed." 

Believing in the Holy Trinity, we rise into 
a full appreciation of the Te Deum. " The 
Father of an infinite Majesty; Thine Ador- 
able, True, and Only Son; also the Holy 
Ghost, the Comforter." 

The world, the sceptical spirit of the age, 
the so-called culture, hard and cold, the inves- 
tigations of would-be scientists, and the nar- 
row minds of the higher critics, would rob us 
of this faith. So we pray in the ancient col- 
lect of the day, " Keep us steadfast in this 
faith." 

On Trinity Sunday we must rise out of our- 
selves; we must dwell not so much upon God's 
mercies to us, infinite as they are, but, forget- 
ting ourselves, we must think upon the glori- 
ous majesty of Him who dwells in light which 
no man can approach unto; He, who with the 
Son and the Holy Spirit reigns without begin- 
ning or end, in whom is such Beauty, Grace, 
and Purity, that we cannot comprehend it! 
" Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou 
art God." 

We do well to meditate upon His surround- 



116 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

ings and upon that wondrous throne, from 
which issues forth a golden stream of fire; be- 
fore which lies the crystal sea, and on that sea 
stand the whole company of the redeemed. We 
forget the world with its petty trials, its mis- 
takes, and incessant warfare, and in all hu- 
mility we gaze upon the Triune God, until, 
by contemplating Him, we grow to imitate 
Him. 

" And faith will bear thee on her wings 
Almost to where the angels live." 

By contemplation we gain the power to 
suffer, to persevere, and to worship. And we 
can only learn how to contemplate by habitu- 
ally frequenting the Altar, where we join with 
the invisible company who " stand on the sea 
of glass mingled with fire," and sing the thrice 
Holy to the Blessed Trinity. And when for 
us that glorious day shall come, when Christ 
shall be acknowledged, and no longer rejected 
by a mocking world; and when all the re- 
deemed shall be brought through the pearly 
gates into the golden city, then will the Church 
find her great reward in beholding the beatific 
vision which she longingly awaits. 



TRINITY SUNDAY 117 

u Then we'll reign in heavenly glory, 

Then we'll walk in golden light, 
Then we'll drink as from a river, 

Holy bliss and infinite. 
Love and peace we'll taste forever, 

And all truth and knowledge see 
In the beatific vision 

Of the Blessed Trinity." 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE TRANSFIGURATION 

" On Tabor, with the glory 

Of sunniest light for vest, 

The excellence of beauty 

In Jesu was expressed. 

O holy, wondrous vision! 

But what, when this life past, 
The beauty of Mount Tabor 
Shall end in heaven at last." 

— Greek Hymns. 

The Transfiguration was a unique event in 
our Lord's earthly life. It brings us in touch 
with the unseen world. It revealed Him in 
His true heavenly aspect, and imparted to the 
Church a sure hope of the glory and bright- 
ness of His second coming in power and 
majesty, which the lapse of time cannot efface. 
(See II. St. Peter i. 16.) 

A few days previous to this great event our 
Lord revealed to His Apostles the awful fact 
of His approaching Passion, and their faint 
hearts were unable to comprehend the neces- 



THE TRANSFIGURATION 119 

sity of such a humiliation. The natural man 
always recoils from the mystery of suffering, 
and the impetuous St. Peter, speaking the 
thoughts of the others, exclaimed: " Be it far 
from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee." 
For which utterance our Lord rebuked him, 
deeming the suggestion that He should avoid 
the Cross, to have been prompted by the Evil 
One, who had before tempted Him in the 
desert. Our Lord's divinity had just been 
acknowledged by the disciples, and claimed by 
Himself as His right; that the Son of God 
should suffer such ignominy seemed inexplic- 
able. Thus, after a few days, our Lord, read- 
ing their thoughts, knew that the time had 
come when unless they beheld some manifesta- 
tion of His divinity, their feeble faith would 
fail. 

After a day of toil, He called His three 
favored disciples, Peter, James, and John, 
apart from the turmoil of the noisy world, up 
the grassy slopes of Tabor, through fields of 
waving grain, past vineyards and olive groves, 
up to the summit of the mount. Beneath, lay 
the loveliest land on all the earth; the land Mo- 
ses saw, as he stood on the summit of Mount 



120 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Pisgah; the land also of our Saviour's Birth, 
of His Death, Eesurrection, and glorious As- 
cension; and the land on which His feet will 
stand at His second coming. But it is not to 
gaze on nature in her loveliness that the 
Blessed Jesus seeks the lofty mountain-top; it 
is to pour out His soul with " strong crying and 
tears " for a manifestation of the glory which 
He had with the Father before the world was. 
He desires it that the faith of His three dear 
companions may be strengthened, and that His 
own human soul may be sustained to go forth 
and meet the agony that awaits Him in the 
near future. And while the Man of Sorrows 
kneeled in prayer, the three disciples slept. 

As Christ pleaded earnestly, the heavenly 
portals were thrown open, and " that light that 
never was on sea or land " flooded the mount 
with its glory; and our Lord, in white and 
glistening robes, as no fuller on earth can 
whiten them, with a countenance which shone 
as the sun, stood enswathed in glory; while 
with Him, also in glorious apparel, were Moses 
and Elijah, the representatives of the Law and 
the Prophets, ambassadors from the realm of 
departed spirits, sent to comfort the Son of 



THE TKANSFIGUKATIOK 121 



Man. " And spake of His decease which 
He should accomplish at Jerusalem." 

Surrounded by such glory the Apostles 
awoke, and St. Peter, feeling that here was a 
refuge from the wicked world, said: "It is 
good for us to be here; and let us make three 
tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, 
and one for Elias." 

But a still further wonder appears, for the 
cloud of glory, the Shekinah, by which the 
Father veils His majesty, overshadowed them 
all; and His voice declared, " This is My be- 
loved Son; hear Him." Ah! what mortal can 
picture that glorious scene. Words are inade- 
quate, only the devout imagination in the still- 
ness of each individual soul can portray it. 

" When in ecstacy sublime, 

Tabor's glorious steep I climb, 
At the too transporting light, 
Darkness rushes o'er my sight." 

" And when the voice was past Jesus was 
found alone/' says St. Luke. But such fear 
had overcome the disciples that they had fall- 
en upon their faces; and, says St. Matthew, 
" Jesus came and touched them, and said, 



122 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

' Arise, and be not afraid/ And when they 
had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save 
Jesus only." 

The vision was over, and as the Master and 
His disciples descended the winding pathway 
to the valley beneath, the rising sun looked 
wonderingly down upon the blessed mountain 
which had been singled out for the display of 
such celestial glory. Well may the Psalmist 
have exclaimed: " Tabor shall rejoice in Thy 
name." 

Subjectively, the Transfiguration is of three- 
fold interest to us. First, as a proof that our 
prayers for spiritual blessings are always an- 
swered. Second, as a revelation of the truth 
of the immortality of the soul. Third, as an 
evidence that spiritual joys are sent to enable 
us to persevere unto the end. 

It is not derogatory to our Lord's divinity 
to say that His human nature shrank from 
the ordeal it had voluntarily chosen to pass 
through. But Christ always resorted to prayer 
as the most efficacious means of strength. His 
spending whole nights in prayer when physi- 
cally as exhausted as His disciples, is an exam- 
ple to those who are content with very brief de- 



THE TRAKSFIGUKATIO^ 123 

votions, and seek to find consolation in the 
world (a gift which she can never bestow), in- 
stead of at the Altar Throne. 

" Come, ye disconsolate ! Where'er ye languish, 
Come to God's Altar, fervently kneel; 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your 
anguish, 
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." 

The prayer of the most blessed Jesus was 
immediately answered, for He always prayed 
with faith and earnestness. " Before they call, 
I will answer; and while they are yet speaking 
I will hear." Truly prayer is the life of the 
soul. In it we place ourselves in the immedi- 
ate presence of God, and are en rapport with 
the unseen world. It is to spiritual life what 
air is to the physical; without it the soul must 
languish and die, for, in the words of Cardinal 
Manning : " It is impossible for us to make 
the duties of our lot minister to our sanctifica- 
tion without a habit of devout fellowship with 
God. It is the spring of all our life, and the 
strength of it." 

" Pray without ceasing " is the Apostle's 
injunction. In the appearance of the two great 



124 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

types of the old dispensation, men who had 
lived more than one thousand years before, 
yet still preserving their own individuality, so 
that they were known by the disciples who had 
never seen them, we are taught the truth of the 
immortality of the soul; and the cry of the 
human heart, " If a man die shall he live 
again ?" is answered beyond question of a 
doubt. The soul does not sleep after leaving 
the body, for here were two departed spirits, 
who were cognizant of earthly affairs, and also 
of future events, for they spoke of our Lord's 
decease, which had not then taken place. 

The fact of their identity being recognized 
by St. Peter's spirit — for never having seen 
them his physical vision would not have served 
to tell him who these august spirits were — es- 
tablishes beyond a doubt the recognition of our 
friends, and even of those we have not known 
when we shall meet them in Paradise. Says a 
devout writer : " The consciousness of our own 
personality, and the recognition of our fellow- 
beings, are among the foundation-stones of our 
thought of immortality." 

We must remember that this vision ap- 
peared to these weary men, human beings like 



THE TRANSFIGURATION 125 

ourselves. But they were with the blessed 
Jesus, and wherever He went myriads of an- 
gels and saints, though invisible, waited upon 
His footsteps, their presence known to Him, 
though veiled from the eyes of His followers. 
And even now, if we are with Christ, we too 
are waited upon by ministering angels and de- 
parted loved ones, whose presence, oft-times, 
thrills the heart with a consciousness of unseen 
companions. 

The Transfiguration was a preparation for 
the final act in the drama of our Redeemer's 
life; it was a fore-shining of the glory with 
which He was to be invested when St. John 
should again behold Him in the isle of Patmos. 
It was also given to the disciples as a means to 
strengthen their drooping faith, and prepare 
them to witness their Master's agony in the 
garden and His death upon the cross. Oh! 
how these blessed foretastes, that are even now 
vouchsafed to Christians when in communion 
with our Lord, nerve the soul to endure the 
conflicts with the powers of evil whom they 
must encounter when they have descended 
from the mount of privilege. A Christian's 
life cannot be all vision, the days of depression 



126 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

and sorrow will come if we follow our Master, 
and as the saintly Keble expresses it : 

" If ever on the mount with Thee 
I seem to soar in vision bright, 
With thoughts of coming agony 

Stay Thou the too presumptuous flight. 

" Gently along the vale of tears 

Lead me from Tabor's sun-bright steep, 
Let me not grudge a few short years 
With Thee toward heaven to walk and weep." 

Christ charged His chosen witnesses to tell 
no man of the vision until He should rise. The 
command suggests the thought that spiritual 
experiences often lose their preciousness if 
freely talked of, especially before those whose 
lack of spirituality prevent their comprehend- 
ing the truth. " Be very jealous, then, how 
thou speakest of the love of God to thee, or of 
the love which He giveth. It is the secret of 
the Lord. ' Thy secret to thyself/ it was said 
of old." 

" They saw no man save Jesus only." When 
visions fail, and the unseen fades from our 
sight, we are not alone, for He is with us al- 
ways; and when we descend from the mount 



THE TKAJSTSFIGURATIOK 127 

to the world of sin and suffering, represented 
in the Gospel by the child whose malady the 
disciples could not cure, He goes beside us, 
and leads us on in the path He and His saints 
have trod, the way of suffering, which brings 
us to the life eternal. 

" ' Jesu only! ' In the shadows 

Of the clouds so chill and dim, 
We are clinging, leaning, trusting, 

He with us and we with Him ; 
All unseen though ever nigh, 
' Jesu only ' — all our cry. 

" * Jesu only! ' In the glory, 

When the shadows all are flown, 

Seeing Him in all His beauty, 
Satisfied with Him alone ; 

May we join His ransomed throng, 
■ Jesu only ' — all our song." 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

THE FEAST OF ALL ANGELS 

" Thine angels, Christ, we laud in solemn lays, 
Our elder brethren of the crystal sky, 
Who 'mid Thy glorious blaze 
The ceaseless anthem raise, 
And gird Thy throne in faithful ministry. 

" We celebrate their love, whose viewless wings 
Hath left for us so oft those mansions high, 
The mercies of their King 
To mortal saints to bring, 
Or guard the couch of slumbering infancy." 

— Bishop Heber. 

" The blessed angels," says a devout writer, 
" are not as stars above us, unconcerned spec- 
tators on their silent watches. One thing is 
mentioned of them by our Lord which at first 
hearing might well amaze us, namely, that the 
highest of these glorious spirits watch over the 
most humble Christian." Throughout Holy 
Writ, from Genesis to Revelation, we are 
taught lessons of their heavenly love for us, 



THE FEAST OF ALL ANGELS 129 

their younger and fallen, yet redeemed, breth- 
ren. From that poetical and philosophical 
book, the life of Job, we learn that when the 
world was created " the sons of God shouted 
for joy." They were filled with rapture be- 
cause the Triune God had unfolded to them 
one of His myriad plans, previously known 
only to the Three Persons of the Ever Blessed 
Trinity. 

Before the fall our parents must have been 
in constant and visible intercourse with celes- 
tial spirits, even as our Lord Himself was when 
He walked the grassy slopes of Olivet, or sat 
beside the blue waters of Galilee. But though 
the fall lost the human race the visible com- 
panionship of the angels, yet their ministry to 
man never ceased; and often, during these 
thousands of years which have elapsed since 
the gates of Eden were guarded by cherubim 
with flaming swords, have they appeared to 
man in important crises of his life. And there 
is to-day such a thing as being in companion- 
ship with our angelic friends, with our dear 
guardian angels, who walk beside us from the 
font, until they conduct us safe into the blessed 

Paradise that awaits the faithful. How then 
9 



130 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

shall we obtain for ourselves and others the 
attendance of these loving spirits? 

" Pray then, that angel ministries may stand 
To gird thy loins, to arm thy feeble hand, 
To prompt to holy thoughts, to urge the way 
Of lowly duty, when thy thoughts would stray, 
To guide thy feet in paths thy Saviour trod, 
And lead through blest obedience to thy God." 

A brief summary of a few of the angelic ap- 
pearances in the Old and New Testaments 
may serve as an incentive to us to desire what 
may also be ours as members of the mystical 
Body of Christ. 

Three angels appear to Abraham, in the 
form of men, and announce the birth of Isaac, 
and twice the angel of the Lord appeared to 
Hagar in her hours of distress in the wilder- 
ness. Two angels appear to Lot and warn him 
to flee from the doomed city. An angel came 
to Manoah and his wife, and to Elijah in the 
wilderness. By the prayer of Elisha the young 
man beholds countless angels and chariots of 
fire round about them. Surely, " the angel of 
the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear 
Him: and delivereth them." Jacob beheld a 
vision of many holy angels; Isaiah, Daniel, 



THE FEAST OF ALL ANGELS 131 

Ezekiel, and other prophets held converse 
with them; and the vacillating, disobedient 
children of Israel were hourly watched over 
by these sons of God. All nations, heathen 
as well as Christian, seem to be under the care 
of these " holy watchers." 

Then in the New Testament we read of 
their appearing to Zachariah, St. Mary, St. 
Joseph, the shepherds, the disciples, St. Peter 
in prison, and St. John in Patmos, to say noth- 
ing of their coming to comfort Our Blessed 
Lord in the wilderness and in the garden. 

"What consolation the faithful have derived 
from the fact, stated by our Saviour Himself, 
that the angels carried the faithful, suffering 
Lazarus to his rest in the bosom of Abraham. 
And so we pray to-day over our dying : " May 
the holy ones of God succor him, may the 
angels of God receive and bear his soul and 
present it before the face of the Most High. 
May the angels carry thee into Abraham's 
bosom." 

Most beautifully does Cardinal Newman 
portray the love of the guardian angel for the 
soul he has watched and cared for, guarding it 
from temptation, and rejoicing when it re- 



132 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

pented, for " there is joy in the presence of 

the angels of God over one sinner that re- 

penteth." 

" My work is done, 
My task is o'er, 
And so I come 
Taking it home, 
For the crown is won, 
Alleluia! Forevermore. 

" My Father gave, 
In charge to me 
This child of earth, 
E'en from its birth, 
To serve and save, 
Alleluia! And saved is he." 

And in another place-— 

" More than the seraph in his height of place, 
The angel-guardian knows and loves the ran- 
somed race." 

How forcible a restraint to keep us from 
evil thoughts and deeds is the knowledge that 
a pure spirit, whose heavenly appointed task 
is to be ever by our side, listens to every 
thought. 

" We cannot pass our guardian angel's bound, 
Kesigned or sullen, he will hear our sigh." 



THE FEAST OF ALL ANGELS 133 

When overborne by care and temptation, 
and that longing for perfect purity and eternal 
rest which comes so oft to earth's pilgrims, 
how sweet the voice of our angel sounds in 
our ears. It is no myth or idle fancy ; mortals 
have heard and do hear sweet words and strains 
of celestial music borne upon their souls from 
the other world. All Christians have their 
transfiguration moments when the soul is up- 
lifted and strengthened to persevere to the 
end, in order to obtain the crown of life. 

"Cheer up, my soul! Faith's moonbeams softly 
glisten 
Upon the breast of life's most troubled sea, 
And it will cheer thy drooping heart to listen 
To these brave songs which angels mean for thee. 
Angels of Jesus, 
Angels of light, 
Singing to welcome, 
The pilgrims of the night.' ' 

We do not think enough about God's angels, 
and we should strive to imitate them in their 
character and work. One of their characteris- 
tics is implicit obedience to the will of God. 
They do not know a wish contrary to His com- 
mands. " Thy will be done on earth, as it is 



134 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

in heaven," Christ taught us to pray. That is, 
we must obey lovingly and cheerfully every 
wish of our Master. A second characteristic 
is their perfect love for us, and the nearer they 
are to the throne of God, the more humble 
they are; even those who ever behold His face 
are yet willing to serve as guardians to the 
little ones. " Their angels do always behold 
the face of my Father who is in heaven." 

Besides their ready obedience and their 
love, is their willingness to serve. " Are they 
not all ministering spirits sent forth to min- 
ister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" 
" Be your strife to lead on earth an angel's 
life." 

TThat, then, must we do if we would be like 
them and like the blessed saints who are their 
companions? First, obedience, ready and will- 
ing without questioning to obey all of Christ's 
commands; second, to have fervent love and 
charity for all; and third, to serve others by 
working for them, and by continual interces- 
sions in their behalf. 

One of the greatest evils of our age is the 
fast growing disbelief in the supernatural, in 
the reality of the unseen world that lies about 



THE FEAST OF ALL ANGELS 1«35 

us. The majority of people do not believe in 
the actual ministry of the angels whom we 
lovingly commemorate at this time. Most 
beautifully does a poet of to-day thus comment 
on the angels and their blessed and holy work : 

"But tell me, is the age of angels gone; 
Treads man, to-day, life's upward path alone? 
Is there no more the seraph's song to stir 
The soul that bows a faithful worshipper? 
And when to-day the lonely life cries out 
Amidst the wilderness of grief and doubt, 
Do angels raise their hands to hide their eyes 
And haste impatient to their Paradise? 
Is lot of man no more like Jacob's cast? 
Is ' angel's charge ' a sweet dream of the past? 
Nay! For that word was written for all years 
To lighten eyes acquaint with human tears. 
How He shall give His angels charge o'er all 
Whose lives in paths of earthly danger fall. 
He folds to-day all human-hearted things 
Beneath the shadow of His angels' wings ; 
Remember, ye, who read that faithful word, 
The angel of the presence of the Lord 
Still camps in place round sleeping Israel, 
And in that place may man securely dwell. 
Beloved, know, whate'er thy lot may be, 
His angels hold their watches over thee, 
In all thy ways to keep thee, lest alone 
Thou dash thy careless foot against a stone. 
'Tis ever so. As on one mother's breast. 
Two sleeping babes in equal safety rest, 



136 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

So earth and heaven on God's fond breast recline, 
Enfolded by one hushed embrace divine, 
Heaven smiles to God with glad and wakeful 

eyes, 
But earth asleep dreams not that thus it lies 
On God's own bosom while His loving* arm 
Its helpless form encircles from all harm. 
But thou, beloved, learn it and declare 
The golden truth to lift earth's needless care." 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

ALL SAINTS' DAY 

When the soft summer tints merge into the 
full, golden hues of autumn, and when the 
foliage, rich in its scarlet colorings, brilliant 
because the seal of death is already upon it, 
reminds us that change and decay are stamped 
upon all our surroundings, then are we forced 
to say with the saintly Keble: " Dreary were 
this earth, if earth were all." Yet in this 
season^ sweet to us, because of the heavenly 
thoughts and aspirations it suggests, comes 
that precious day, so dear to all Catholics, the 
Feast of All Saints'; fit companion in its 
teachings to the subdued joy of Easter Even. 
As Easter Even tells us that since the Lord of 
all deigned to sleep within the gloomy portals 
of the tomb, we need not fear to lay us down 
to rest, so All Saints' Day shows us that those 
whom, in earthly language we call dead, are 



138 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAB 

not dead, but " alive unto God through Jesus 

Christ our Lord/' 

" For death 
Now we know, is that first breath 
Which our souls draw when we enter 
Life, which is of all life centre." 

Near as the dear departed saints are at all 
times to those whose lives are hid with Christ 
in God, yet on this blessed annual Feast the 
Church emphasizes the teaching of that pre- 
cious clause of the Apostles' Creed: "I be- 
lieve in the communion of saints." For the 
Collect says: "O Almighty God, who hast 
knit together Thine elect in one communion 
and fellowship, in the mystical body of Thy 
Son Jesus Christ our Lord." We do not ask 
that we may be knit with them when we are 
also called to the rest of Paradise, but the Col- 
lect declares that all the elect, that is the living 
and the departed, are knit now in communion 
and fellowship. How and why are the living 
and departed one, even now, notwithstanding 
the fact that they have laid aside the cumbrous 
weight of flesh, while we toil on, trying to fol- 
low them as they did our Lord, in " all virtuous 
and godly living?" 



ALL saints' day 139 

The Collect contains the obvious answer. 
They are one in Christ's mystical body. Do 
we not say in the thanksgiving after the cele- 
bration of the Holy Eucharist, " and that we 
are very members incorporate in the mystical 
body of Thy Son, which is the blessed com- 
pany of all faithful people?" 

Hence we see that it is not at the grave that 
we find our dear ones, but at the Altar rail. As 
has been said: 

" Here would we worship Thee, 
With saints, who round Thee wait; 
Who at the golden Altar stand, 
High in the heavenly, holy land." 

Truly we shall find that 
" Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." 

A devout writer of our day, whose thoughts 
reveal him to be in close communion with the 
unseen, has said: " It is comforting above all 
else that in immediate answer to our Altar 
prayer for God's grace, we may verily and in- 
deed receive unto ourselves the Blessed Jesus, 
and that they who sleep in Him may know 
some electric thrill of our joy, that a dear van- 



140 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

ished hand we so longed for we may really 
touch." 

We notice in one of our hymns on the Real 
Presence these words: 

" Therefore I, my heart upraising, 
Kneel the Sacrament before, 

Contemplate His love amazing. 

And with saints and angels praising, 
On the Altar Christ adore." 

Then in truth when we join with " angels 
and archangels, and all the company of heav- 
en/' our departed saints unite their voices with 
ours, nay, at our desire they may even kneel 
by our very side. Space and time are no 
barriers in the spirit life. If we are one with 
Him we are one with them. 

" O, my dear dead, mine own dear dead ! 
Nearer than when on earth ye dwelt, 
I feel your presence by my side, 
Within my heart your power is felt. 

" O, my dear dead, my own dear dead! 
This blest communion binds us fast, 
In bonds of still increasing love, 
A love that shall forever last! " 

Let the world's votaries mourn the death of 
those they love, but why should Christians 



ALL SAINTS' DAY 141 

possess so little faith and trust as to grieve be- 
cause the trials and the labors of their dear 
ones are ended? Should we not rather rejoice 
that their last tears have been shed, their last 
sins forgiven, and that they have attained 
unto a fuller knowledge of those heavenly 
mysteries, the exceeding greatness and beauty 
of which they thirsted and longed to under- 
stand? 

" 'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose 
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
How grows in Paradise our store." 

Wilful sin only can separate us from those 
we truly love, if they have died in the Faith. 
So we must earnestly pray: 

" Be with us this day; O fold Thine arms 
Around us all! 
That on the tumult of our soul's alarms 
Thy peace may fall. 

" So only can we feel our loved ones near, 
Who sweetly rest, 
In child-like confidence that knows no fear, 
Upon Thy Breast." 

Sickness and death are ever rife among 
us, and on each All Saints' Day new names 



142 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

are added to the celestial calendar of the re- 
deemed, and the Nunc Dimittis is sung o'er 
our loved ones; and ere another year shall roll 
away, our names may be written as citizens 
of that heavenly country ; and before many an 
Altar may rise the petition for us, which we 
have offered for others : 

" Eest eternal grant him, O Lord, and let 
light perpetual shine upon him." 

" Oh, then the glory and the bliss, 
When all that pained or seemed amiss 

Shall melt with earth and sin away! 
When saints beneath their Saviour's eye, 
Filled with each other's company, 

Shall spend in love th' eternal day." 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 

" Beside the dead I knelt for prayer, 
And felt a presence as I prayed ; 
Lo ! it was Jesus standing- there, 
He smiled: * Be not afraid! ' 

1 ' Lord, Thou hast conquered death, we know; 

Restore again to life,' I said, 
' This one who died an hour ago.' 
He smiled: ' She is not dead! ' 

1 ■ Asleep then, as Thyself didst say, 

Yet Thou canst lift the lids that keep 
Her prisoned eyes from ours away! ' 
He smiled: ' She doth not sleep! ' 

1 Nay, then, tho' haply she do wake, 
And look upon some fairer dawn, 
Restore her to our hearts that ache ! ' 
He smiled : - She is not gone ! ' 

1 Yet our beloved seem so far, 

The while we yearn to feel them near, 
Albeit with Thee we trust they are.' 
Ke smiled: ■ And I am here! ' 



144 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

" * Dear Lord, how shall we know that they 
Still walk unseen with us and Thee, 
Nor sleep, nor wander far away ? ' 
He smiled: ' Abide in Me.' " 

In those hours of anguish which come alike 
to each one of our race when, after having 
stood beside the casket that held the form of 
one whom we have loved, we have seen it low- 
ered to its last resting-place, is there any ray of 
hope or light that can bring peace to our 
stricken hearts, save the hope of reunion at 
some distant day, and the belief that the faith- 
ful departed are in a state of happiness? The 
world would tell us : No; the majority of so- 
called Christians would tell us: No! The 
world and many well-meaning friends urge us 
to forget, to take up new interests, or to travel 
in feverish unrest from place to place, seeking 
peace in oblivion of the past. In their igno- 
rance they tell us that it is morbid to dwell on 
thoughts of the rest that remaineth for the 
people of God. But " the air is full of fare- 
wells to the dying and mournings for the 
dead," and since " all that tread the globe are 
but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its 
bosom," it becomes the part of wisdom, and the 



THE C0MMUHI03" OF SAINTS 145 

duty of a devout Catholic, to ponder much 
upon that home which is being prepared for us, 
and upon that heavenly country of which, 
even upon earth, we are citizens. 

" Do we in this age," says the learned Dr. 
Staunton, " think enough of the dead? Are 
we not so afraid of what the world calls ' super- 
stition ' as to deprive ourselves of nearly all 
those consoling and joyous feelings which 
spring from a sense of our near relation to the 
Church above? We have lost, to a sad degree, 
our hold upon the spiritual world. We com- 
mit our departed to the earth, and then think 
no more of them as really living in another 
state, or as having any knowledge of our sor- 
rows and trials. In other days, men who wor- 
shipped under our forms indulged far higher 
thoughts of the relations of the invisible 
Church to the visible. We have lost their habit 
of living on earth a celestial life, and are walk- 
ing too much by sight and not by faith." 

St. Paul says : " I would not have you to be 
ignorant brethren concerning them which are 
asleep." The cold, sceptical spirit of this age 
unfits us to cope with sorrow when it overtakes 
us. It has so permeated Christianity that thou- 

10 



146 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

sands who, though they believe in the immor- 
tality of the soul, and look forward to reunion 
with " the loved," and as they call them, " the 
lost," yet reject that wonderful consolation to 
mourners, the privilege of prayer for the de- 
parted, and have no belief in the " mystic, 
sweet communion with those whose rest is 
won." How cruel, how wanting in all natural 
affection, to pray for a loved one until the 
moment of departure, and then in prayer for- 
ever leave that dear name out! A Scotch 
Presbyterian minister writes thus : 

" Why should our lips be 
Sealed when they are dead 
And we alone? 
Idle? Their doom is fixed? 
Ah ! who can tell ? 

Yet, were it so, I think no harm could well 
Come of my prayer; 

And oh ! the heart, o'erburdened with its grief, 
This comfort needs, and finds therein relief. . . . 
They will not grow 

Less meet for heaven when followed by a prayer 
To speed them home, like summer-scented air." 

Does not the Catholic interpretation of that 
clause of the Apostles' Creed, " I believe in 
the communion of saints," teach us that we 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 147 

may be one, in Christ, with our dear departed 
even here and now? " If the Church be a 
spiritual Body, living by the life of our Lord, 
then it is but one Body in earth and heaven, 
and intercourse between those here and there 
cannot be less direct and real than between 
those in this world, still fettered as they are by 
circumstances of time and space." 

The teachings of the New Testament most 
plainly reveal the unity of the whole Church, 
the visible with the invisible. " Wherefore 
seeing we also are compassed about with so 
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every 
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset 
us, and run with patience the race that is 
set before us." And in another place: " But 
ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the 
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusa- 
lem, and to an innumerable company of an- 
gels . . . and to the spirits of just men 
made perfect." And again, we are made to 
" sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus;" we are, indeed, " fellow-citizens with 
the saints;" and we have but one Father and 
one Saviour, " of whom the whole family in 
heaven and earth is named." 



148 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

The early Church believed in, and accepted, 
her birthright, hence her children went joy- 
fully to the fiery stake, and calmly to the hor- 
rors of the amphitheatre. For they " endured 
as seeing Him who is invisible." It is the loss 
of our faith in the reality of the unseen world 
that surrounds us, and in which we really 
exist (for " in Him we live, and move, and 
have our being "), that has given rise to what 
one of our bishops calls " the cruel blasphemies 
of Spiritualism." 

Speaking of the belief of the early Chris- 
tians, Bishop Wilkinson says: "They were 
taught to believe that the blessed ones who 
were delivered from the burden of the flesh, 
were not more ' in Christ ' than they them- 
selves were; that all were equally in c the 
Vine/ knit together in one communion and 
fellowship in the mystical Body of God's dear 
Son." And in another place he says : " If God 
gives you grace so to do, at any time when He 
may call away from you those whom you love, 
if only you fall back upon your Bible, and 
cherish — by prayer to the Holy Spirit — the 
thought that the spirit is still with you, while 
you are looking at the body; that you are still 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 149 

one in the fellowship of the saints; then that 
thought will become as much a part of your 
being as the knowledge that the Lord Himself 
is with you. ... In the chamber of 
death you will at once be able to look at the 
body as separate from the spirit. You will 
think how happy that spirit is, and how it 
loves you and is with you still. And as you 
pass on to the grave you will have an unseen 
companion, while you are following that poor, 
earthly tabernacle!" 

What can the world offer to mourners so 
blessed as these plain Bible truths thus ex- 
plained by such a devout student of holy 
things? Who ever found rest from sorrow by 
plunging into the gayeties of the world, in 
hopes to drown the bitterness of an aching 
heart ? Let us believe that : 

" Those we love truly never die 
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath, 
A ring and flowers, types of life and death, 
Are laid upon their graves. 

" For death the pure life saves, 
And life all pure is love, and love can reach 
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach 
Than those by mortals read. 



150 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

" Well blessed is he who has a dear one dead; 
A friend he has whose face will never change; 
A dear communion that will ne'er grow strange; 
The anchor of a love is death." 

Speaking on this subject, Cardinal Manning 
says: " Shall they love us less because they 
have power to love us more? If we forget 
them not, shall they not remember us with 
God? No trial then can isolate us, no sorrow 
can cut us off from the communion of saints. 
Kneel down and you are with them. Only a 
thin veil it may be floats between. All whom 
we loved and who loved us are ever near, be- 
cause in His Presence in whom we live and 
dwell." 

Oh, why should we speak of the faithful de- 
parted as dead? Surely Wordsworth's little 
" cottage girl " had grasped the truth when 
she reiterated her pathetic statement, " We 
are seven." " Not dead ! They pass us in the 
street; they sit beside us in the hall." 

What an incentive to live holy lives is the 
knowledge that our every thought is known to 
those who have been our companions on earth! 
How much nobler to have their approval than 
to be able to win the applause of this world, or 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 151 

to gain the laurel wreaths of fame ! But some 
may ask: "' Are we really conscious of the 
presence of those, who, theoretically, we may 
believe are about us ? " Ask the fond wife who 
has seen the love-light die out of her husband's 
eyes, as they closed to open on fairer scenes, 
does she not know him to be with her? Does 
she not see him and hear him speak to her, 
sometimes, as she plies her daily task alone, 
and sometimes in dreams so vivid that she in- 
stantly awakes? 

" I met his eyes, I heard him speak, 
I felt his breath upon my cheek. 

" His hand-clasp thrilled me through and through, 
His touch upon my lips like dew 
Broke the vision of my sleep, 
Boused me from my slumber deep." 

Or, ask the young mother who has laid her 
darling to rest. Does she not feel, even though 
she cannot explain it, the sweet presence of her 
child, and the loving arms about her neck? 

" Ah, God ! it was long ago — 

That musical voice so low, 
And the little palm 
Touching mine, so calm! 

But still in the evening light, 

Or at the deep midnight, 



152 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

I can hear that whisper clear, 
From spirit lips so near, 

* My love, good night, 
Good night!'" 

" "We may not know/' says a devout writer, 
" all the spiritual ways of their mystic com- 
munion with us who fain would follow them, 
but the fact remains, and those whose lives are 
■ hid with Christ in God ' know that it is no 
mere idle fancy, or vain illusion of an over- 
wrought imagination, but an obvious and pal- 
pable reality." The stricken heart that wrote 
the following, needed such a ray of light from 
the Catholic faith: 

" There is no comfort anywhere, 
My baby's clothes, my baby's hair, 

My baby's grave, are all I know. 
What could have hurt my baby ? Why, 

Why did he come; why did he go? 
And shall I have him by and by?" 

Ah ! could such a mourner have only known 
the sweet peace that would have sprung even 
from the little green grave she loved, she had 
never written thus. God grant that the eyes 
of such sorrowing ones — and their number is 
legion — may be opened. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 153 

In the spirit life there are no barriers of 
time or space, such as fetter the earth-bound 
soul. For, in the words of one who, as she 
neared the end, was vouchsafed a clear insight 
into the mysteries of heavenly things, " he that 
is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him, 
and He cannot be separated from Himself. 
The prayer of Christ to His Father for His 
friends was, ' that they may be one, even as we 
are One.' The children are no more apart 
from each other than from their Father, if 
they are doing His will, though they may seem 
to be sundered by the width of continents or 
by the silence of the grave." 

Oh ! let those who have not yet realized the 
nearness of the unseen world, pray that their 
eyes may be opened, that they may be enabled 
to feel the Presence of the Lord, with His 
saints and angels keeping watch around them, 
so that when the hours of darkness and be- 
reavement come upon them, they may, by the 
eye of faith, pierce beyond the veil; then the 
rays of light from Paradise will fall upon 
them; and they may hear strains of celestial 
music, and so be strengthened to follow in the 
footsteps of the faithful departed, and become 



154 THOUGHTS FOB THE CHKISTIAK YEAR 

" meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the 
saints in light." 

Then pray for and with all faithful souls; 
do the will of God; desire the grace that comes 
from frequent and devout communions, and 
seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit; so shall 
you keep your dear ones near you; so shall 
you enter into rest even upon earth, and know 
what it is to be filled with that peace of God 
which passeth understanding. 



CHAPTEK XVI. 

ALL SOULS' DAY 

" Ev'n as we sing", by angel hands are borne, 
Unto the haven of their Saviour's breast, 
Souls that have languished in a world forlorn; 
Grant unto them, O Lord, eternal rest." 

It is the instinct of the human mind in times 
of great emotion, whether of joy or sorrow, to 
strive to pour forth its thoughts in verse. 
Hence we have so many poems upon love, and 
so many upon death; some written perhaps 
by those who never wrote or dreamed of writ- 
ing until their hearts were stirred by the most 
intense rapture or grief. When those whom 
we have cared for pass out of our world, we 
love to think of them in that blessed rest of 
Paradise, supremely happy, but not yet com- 
plete, for they await the redemption of the 
body. " God having provided . . . that 
they without us should not be made perfect." 
It is a great consolation to the bereaved to 



156 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

think much upon the state of the faithful de- 
parted, and the joys of Paradise, and to search 
the Bible for information upon the subject. 
We learn from the story of Dives and Lazarus, 
that there is a place of woe and a place of bliss; 
that in both memory, affections, and entire 
consciousness, still exist. We see from the 
Transfiguration that Moses and Elijah, though 
having passed hundreds of years in the other 
world, were yet cognizant of the affairs of this, 
and retained their own conscious identity. 
St. Paul, we read, was in a strait betwixt the 
desire to depart, which was far better, and the 
wish to remain for the sake of others. We 
know that " the souls of the righteous are in 
the hand of God, and there shall no torment 
touch them." And yet knowing all this we 
still weep and mourn and speak of the blessed 
ones as dead! 

Sir Edwin Arnold writes thus in that sweet 
little poem, " After Death in Arabia:" 

" Yet ye weep, my erring* friends, 
While the man whom ye call dead, 
In unspoken bliss instead, 
Lives and loves you; lost, 'tis true, 
By such light as shines for you; 



ALL souls' day 157 

But in the light ye cannot see 

Of unfulfilled felicity, 

In enlarging Paradise, 

Lives a life that never dies. 

I am gone before your face 

A moment's worth, a little space, 

When ye come were I have stepped 

Ye will wonder why ye wept." 

And in " The Light of the World/' he por- 
trays Jairus' daughter as saying: 

" Now weep not so, 
Ye living ones! Ye too, shall pass! and then — 
To grow so new and different! What is't? 
Will men still call it dead ? We lie abed ; 
And sleep; and seem on all our nights to die; 
But the soul wakes, and plays between the bars, 
Like a caged bird. Afterwards body wakes, 
And soul's asleep or hiding! What surprise 
For those who go feet foremost to the grave, 
To learn the dream was day-time, light was night, 
Gliding, soft gliding, to that greater life, 
Which always was so near." 

Death is like the shield with two sides; the 
side turned to us on earth bears a very different 
aspect from the side which is seen by the in- 
habitants of the other world. To us the angel 
of death seems stern, relentless, and unloving; 
but to those whom he has touched with his 
cold hand, he appears as an angel of mercy and 



158 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

light. Jean Kenyon, in that sweet poem, " An 
Answered Prayer/ 7 pictures the man who 
prayed for peace, in preference to fame or 
riches, as affrighted when he saw the angel of 
death beside him, who thus addressed him: 

" * Thy prayer is heard,' the angel said, 
' Men pray for peace, yet death would shun, 
Not seeing with their blinded eyes, 
That death and peace are ever one. 
Thy prayer is heard! ' he said." 

In the same strain writes that sweet poet, 
Nelly Hart Woodworth: 

" If we could bridge the stream of life, 
And, standing on the farther side, 
Could see the loveliness that lies 
Within the land of Paradise, 
We should not dread to cross the tide. 

" If we could see how sweet the flowers 
That bloom within the Eden bowers, 
Where life's immortal rivers rise, 
Within the gates of Paradise, 
We should not wish our buds to stay 
Until their perfume died away." 

Another writer speaks in these words: 

" Death on earth is birth in heaven, 
As the body dies, 
To the waiting soul is given 
Birth-right in the skies. 



ALL souls' day 159 

" Could we see the eyes first glow, 
Hear the joyful cry, 
Would it then so often seem 
Terrible to die?" 

Very beautiful are the thoughts upon death 
and the life beyond, which from time to time 
appear from the pen of Susan Coolidge; 
among which we note the following lines : 

" Thank God for death ; bright thing with dreamy 
name; 
We wrong with mournful flowers her pure still 
brow, 
We heap her with reproaches and with blame ; 
Her sweetness and her fitness disallow, 
Questioning bitterly on the why and how ; 
But calmly 'mid our clamor and surmise 
She touches each in turn, and each grows wise, 
Taught by the light in her mysterious eyes. 
I shall be glad, and I am thankful now." 

And in another poem she says: 

" Oh, sweet to her, the first, long, rapturous breath 
Of heaven, after life's pent and poisoning air, 
Freedom unstinted, power to will and dare, 
The victory won from life and over death! " 

One of the great consolations that our Faith 
offers to mourners is the absolute knowledge 
that the faithful departed are blest and happy, 



160 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

even though, they are not yet perfect. Our 
tenderest solicitude cannot shield them from 
trials and sufferings here upon earth, but 
there, their sins are purged away, and while 
we toil on, striving to complete our yet unfin- 
ished task, they are happy, they are with 
Christ, they are near us, and they know that 
their bodies will rest in the keeping of the 
angels until the last day, and then be forever 
reunited to their souls. Says an eminent 
writer: 

" Every saint in heaven is as a flower in that gar- 
den of God, and holy love is the fragrance and 
sweet odor they all send forth, and with which 
they fill the bowers of that Paradise above." 

Though we know that the body must turn 
to dust, yet it is right that every mark of rever- 
ence should be bestowed upon that body and 
its resting-place; for it has been redeemed, 
and we know that it shall rise again at the 
coming of our Lord, and be caught up to meet 
Him in the air. So the Church teaches us to 
have the last rites performed with blessed 
prayers, and reverently to lay the dear form 
in hallowed ground. A beautiful and unique 
poem by Eugene Field, "The Singing in God's 



ALL SOULS' DAY 161 



Acre/' appeared not very long since, of which 

we quote one stanza : 

" Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God's acre 
lies, 
Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lul- 
laby s; 
Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes 

are bended low, 
As they sing among the beds whereon the flowers 
delight to grow. 

' Sleep, oh, sleep! 
The Shepherd guardeth His sheep, 
Fast speedeth the night away, 
Soon cometh the glorious day, 
Sleep, weary ones, while ye may, 
Sleep, oh, sleep!"' 

There is an inexpressible feeling of peace 
and rest as one looks upon the quiet graves that 
lie about the house of God, a feeling that the 
body must sleep sweetly in that consecrated 
ground. These lines by a layman, long since 
gone to his rest, express what many feel: 

" A home! a home! and a place of rest 
Beneath the soft green sod, 
Where the faithful sleep their last, long sleep, 

Hard by the house of God! 
Oh, I'd joy to sleep in that calm repose 

The church-wall shadows fling, 
O'er the dead in Christ, who lie around, 
Freed from death's bitter sting." 
11 



162 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAK YEAR 



These lines remind us of the familiar poem 
by Bishop Ooxe upon " Churchyards/' be- 
ginning: 

" I never can see a churchyard old, 
With its mossy stones and mounds," etc. 

But yet wherever our own or our dear ones' 
forms may be laid: 

" This only may we know— how far and wide 
That precious dust be carried by the tide, 
No mote is lost, but every grain of sand 
Close-gathered in our Father's loving hand, 
And made to build again— somehow, some- 
where — 
Another isle of life, divinely fair! " 

Writing of the graves of dear ones, which 
she can see from her western window, Mrs. 
Moore speaks in these words in one of the 
stanzas : 

" I can see the marble gleaming in and out among 
the trees, 
Like the sheen of angel garments waving in the 
summer breeze, 

Birds are singing, 
Flowers are springing 
Into pure and perfect beauty where the dear ones 
lie at ease." 

But it is not from contemplation of the 
grave that mourners can derive any real con- 



ALL souls' day 163 

solation. There are but three aspects of the 
death of our dear ones that bring true comfort. 
Their own unspeakable happiness, the hope of 
reunion, when we too shall be called to enter 
into Paradise, and the belief in their present 
nearness as members of the same mystical body 
of Christ, in which, as the Collect for All 
Saints' Day says, we are knit together — there 
is much, as we have previously shown, that 
brings happiness to us in the knowledge 

" That even now they ripen in sunny Paradise, 
O summer-land of harvest, O fields forever white, 
With souls that wear Christ's raiment, 
With crowns of golden light." 

There is also great joy in contemplating the 
reunion with all who have been dear to us. 
As the poet Whittier says: 

" I go to find my lost and mourned for 
Safe in Thy sheltering goodness still, 
And all that hope and faith foreshadow, 
Made perfect in Thy holy will." 

And in another poem he writes : 

" Yet love will dream and faith will trust 
(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress trees; 



164 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

Who hath not learned in hours of faith, 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That life is ever lord of death, 
And love can never lose its own." 

Our Lord said: " To-day shalt thou be with 
me in Paradise." So we believe and know — 
there is no shadow of uncertainty in the mat- 
ter — that if only we may attain to enter that 
happy land we will find our loved ones waiting 
and watching for us. But our Faith teaches us 
even more than this. " I believe in the com- 
munion of saints/' we say in the Creed; and 
this precious clause teaches us that the land of 
our dreams and our longings is not far off, but 
lies near and around us; and this precious be- 
lief is a present and powerful assistance in days 
of affliction. In the words of a writer pre- 
viously quoted: 

" Not far away 
The city where they walk to-day, 
The undiscovered country where the friends 
Are resting* that walked with us yesterday; 
And in our visions we their forms may see, 
Because the veil is lifted when we sleep, 
Angels come nearer then, their watch to keep, 
And those we love speak low to you and me." 

A devout writer says : " They may be nearer 
to us as they are nearer to the perfect love; 



ALL souls' day 165 

they may guide us to a holier and ampler free- 
dom, since they suffer no more the limitations 
of time." Truly, as the Apostle says, " We 
also are compassed about with a cloud of wit- 
nesses." Very sweet are Mr. Loomis's lines on 
the mystic voices : 

" Calling- from the mystic distance, 
Voices low and sweet I hear; 
Night and day with strange persistence 
Call these voices soft and clear. 

" Then my soul is strongly lifted 
Far above earth's petty jars, 
By some sweeping current drifted 
With the current of the stars. 

" O my voices come still nearer, 
Take me from the world apart, 
Sing to me your songs yet clearer, 
Make your home within my heart." 

Writing upon this subject of the com- 
munion of all faithful souls, Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe says: " We are compassed 
about by a cloud of witnesses, whose hearts 
throb in sympathy with every effort and strug- 
gle, and who thrill with joy at every success. 
They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, 



166 THOUGHTS FOE THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

glorified, but still they remain to us our as- 
sistants, our comforters, and in every hour of 
darkness their voice speaks to us, ' So we 
grieved, so we struggled, so we fainted, so we 
doubted; but we have overcome, we have ob- 
tained, we have seen, we have found, and in 
our victory behold the certainty of thine 
own.' " 

And in a poem the same writer thus ex- 
presses herself: 

" Sweet souls around us, watch us still! 
Press nearer to our side! 
Into our thoughts, into our prayers, 
With gentle helpings glide! " 

"With so much to strengthen us, let us be- 
lieve and teach others to believe, that 

" Death never separates; the golden wires 
That ever trembled to their names before, 
Will vibrate still, though every form expires, 
And those we love we look upon no more." 

Thus we see that we who believe in the 
teaching of the Church, know that death has 
lost its sting, and that when we are called to 
separate visibly from our dear ones, we may 
know they are in a state of happiness (if they 



ALL souls' day 167 

have been faithful here); and that in the 
future we shall all meet in the land of light and 
love, and be forever in His Presence, who is 
the Resurrection and the Life, for our Creed 
says: " I believe in the communion of saints, 
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the 
body, and the life everlasting. Amen." 



CHAPTEK XVII. 

THE HOLY ALTAR 

" Altar of God! My soul loves all thy brightness, 
Thou art to me a thing divinely fair, 
Emblem of hope and joy, thy mystic whiteness, 
Shines through the night of sin and grief and 
care. 

" Thou art the throne of God with man abiding, 
Who then shall dare to lift his eyes to thee, 
Save as He pleads for us, and we confiding 
In His dear love, draw near from doubts set 
free. 

" Safe for a time from all the world's confusion, 
I yield my soul to thy dear silent charm; 
With thee so near, doubts cannot make intrusion, 
Passions are still, and fear yields no alarm." 
— Rev. F. Tf. Westcott. 

" The great Sun round which the spiritual 
life revolves," says the author of " Simple 
Meditations," " is Jesus in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment of the Altar. All heat, color, beauty, in 
the soul's life spring from the Altar-Throne, 
whence Jesus pours them forth with no stint- 



THE HOLY ALTAR 169 

ing hand on His children. This being so, it 
is well that we should turn our thoughts with 
devout reverence to the subject of Holy Com- 
munion, with the prayerful desire to know 
more of His love as shown in it." On the 
Holy Altar we have the perpetual Presence of 
our Lord, even as He promised when He said, 
" Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." The offering of the Eucharist 
is the only act of worship enjoined by Christ 
Himself, and hence is the most powerful form 
of prayer; for when we come to ask great 
favors of God we must bring an offering, and 
what offering can poor sinners make of them- 
selves? But in this we offer the only sacrifice 
pleasing in His sight, even the Body and Blood 
of our Saviour. 

The meaning of the word Eucharist is 
Thanksgiving; and we offer humble thanks to 
the Father for the wonderful gift of His Son, 
and through the Holy Spirit we worship the 
Lamb, Who is on the heavenly Throne, and 
yet is spiritually present on His Altar-Throne. 
The duty of every Christian is to worship, and 
here only can we learn how rightly to adore the 
ever Blessed Trinity. "Were our eyes opened, 



170 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

as were those of the young man who was with 
Elisha on the mount, we should see the Altai- 
surrounded by myriads of holy angels and 
saints worshipping around Him Who gracious- 
ly comes to bestow His own life upon us, His 
children. To the eye of humble faith many a 
bright vision has been seen about the Altar- 
Throne. And much more might be spiritually 
apprehended, if the devout communicant de- 
sired it with his whole soul. 

" Angels kneel in breathless adoration 

When He draws near, unseen by mortal eyes, 
Lending their song in solemn celebration 
E'en as we plead the mystic sacrifice." 

The subjective consciousness of the Real 
Presence grows upon the communicant, per- 
haps only after years of waiting upon the Altar , 
although he may truly believe it intellectually. 
But when he first really feels the thrill and 
gladness of spiritual joys, then the world be- 
gins to lose its hold upon his heart. 

" Then worship and adore, 
For He is here! 
Then love Him more and more 
For He is here! 



THE HOLY ALTAR 171 

O Feast of priceless worth! 
The Saviour's Death shown forth! 
Yes, this is heaven on earth! 
Jesus is here." 

The uses of the Holy Communion are mani- 
fold; besides as a thanksgiving and as an act of 
worship we receive our Lord's Body and Blood 
in order to become members of that great 
body of which He is the Head, for belong- 
ing to that we may have part in the Blessed 
Resurrection, and be guests at the Marriage 
Supper of the Lamb. Our Saviour Himself 
says, " Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of 
Man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in 
you. Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh 
My Blood hath eternal life, and I will raise 
him up at the last day." 

And in the Revelation we read, " Blessed 
and holy is he that hath part in the first resur- 
rection; on such the second death hath no 
power, but they shall be priests of God and of 
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand 
years." Ah! who would wish to miss having 
a share in that Blessed Resurrection? We 
also receive the precious Food in order to grow 
more like our Master. The more frequently 



172 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

we receive, after penitent Confession and with 
a devout heart, the more we gain the power of 
assimilation, and by the grace of the Holy 
Spirit we are able to overcome the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. 

" Let each Communion raise me up 
Another step to Thee. 
Mount, mount my soul, the Blessed Cup 
Will make thee fresh and free." 

A third use of the Blessed Sacrament is the 
offering and pleading of the sacrifice of 
Christ's death, for ourselves and others. He 
pleads His Death before the Father in Heaven. 
We unite with Him, and plead the same 
Sacrifice, which was offered once for all upon 
the Cross. 

" For His own dear members He is interceding, 
Far above in light unseen by mortal eyes, 
Yet is present now His faithful children feeding, 
Giving His Own Self, the one true Sacrifice." 

"We intercede for ourselves and others. "We 
may ask for any temporal or spiritual needs 
for those we love, knowing that all things are 
in Christ, as the Apostle says, " All things are 



THE HOLY ALTAK 173 

yours, and ye are Christ's." Do we yearn for 
the salvation of a loved one on earth, or the 
perfection of a dear one in Paradise? Bring 
the wish to the Altar-Throne. Is a loved one 
ill or far away? Whisper your desire for him 
at the Altar-rail. Are you in need of temporal 
blessings? Ask for them with a submissive 
will, if best they will be given. When we pray 
for others we are most like our Lord, for He 
spent whole nights in prayer. 

" I tell Him all my weariness, I show Him all my 
grief, 

The anguish that oppresseth me, the woe with- 
out relief; 

And softly comes the answer back, as His ser- 
vant draweth nigh, 

To feed me with the Bread of Life, * Be not 
afraid, 'tis I.' " 

No balm is so healing for the wounded 
heart, no sedative so soothing as the pouring 
out of our desires at the Altar. 



; And then for those our dearest and our best, 
By this prevailing Presence we appeal, 
O fold them closer to Thy mercy's breast, 
O do Thine utmost for their soul's true weal, 



174 THOUGHTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

From tainting mischief keep them white and 

clear, 
And crown Thy Gifts with grace to persevere ! " 



Another beautiful and wonderful blessing 
is vouchsafed at the Altar, and that is com- 
munion with all of Christ's mystical Body, 
even those within the veil, who look down 
lovingly upon us, even though we may not be 
aware of their presence. Yes, we are sur- 
rounded by a cloud of witnesses. The priest 
bids us lift up our hearts, and we respond, 
" "We lift them up unto the Lord." And then 
in heart, in spirit, and outward voice we join 
with the whole company of heaven in their 
ceaseless song of praise. Ah! could our ears 
be opened, and could we hear the " holy 
voices chanting o'er the crystal sea." Hark! 



" So soft at first and sweet, then full and clear, 
With blended voices of the ransomed throng, 
Comes to our ears the angelic song of praise 
For Him to Whom all glory shall belong. 

" Our willing lips take up the wondrous strain, 
Of praise and worship to the heavenly King, 
And through the earthly veil we almost see, 
The radiant glory of the Lord we sing. 



THE HOLY ALTAR 175 

" It dies away — but lingering in our hearts, 

Those thrilling notes, with loving memories 
dwell, 
Till round God's Throne, throughout eternal 
years, 
Our souls, redeemed, that hymn of praise shall 
swell." 

Where the Blessed Jesus is all His children 
are, whether severed by continents and oceans, 
or separated by the grave. In Him they are 
one, and are near each other. 

Lastly, we do show forth the Lord's Death 
till He come. Until He, our Redeemer, our 
Elder Brother and our King, comes to gather 
His saints together, and to bring them in to 
the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, of which 
the earthly Feast is but a dim shadow, though 
a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet. For 
that coming He bids us watch, for it may be 
that at any moment He will return to take His 
Bride, the Church, unto Himself. And the 
angel said to St. John, " Blessed are they 
which are called unto the Marriage Supper of 
the Lamb." Of that glorious Feast our Lord 
Himself spoke, when He said, " I will drink 
no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day 
that I drink it new in the Kingdom of God." 



176 THOUGHTS FOK THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 

" Thou art coming. At Thy Table 

We are witnesses of this. 
While remembering hearts Thou meetest 
In communion dearest, sweetest, 

Earnest of our coming bliss. 
Showing not Thy Death alone 

And Thy love exceeding great, 
But Thy coming and Thy throne, 

All for which we long and wait." 

So we pray, " Thy Kingdom come." 
For nearly nineteen hundred years the 
world has seen those who love our Lord, and 
long for His appearing, hasten at the rising 
of the sun, before the earthly life, with its 
glamour, its temptations, and labors fill our 
hearts, to seek communion with our risen and 
glorified Christ at the Holy Altar. And there 
in the hush of the early morning, before food 
has passed our lips, or the cares of the day 
have pressed too heavily upon us, we find Him 
waiting that we may worship Him, as did the 
faithful women, who sought Him early at the 
sepulchre. 

" He came in the morning, sweet and still 
As the first sun-ray on some lonely hill, 
From the splendor of heaven, from the awful 

Throne — 
Veiled and silent, He came alone. 



THE HOLY ALTAR 177 

And the few glad hearts that looked for Him, 
In the pure, soft hush of the morning dim, 
Had raised Him an Altar, and made it bright 
With the loveliest gifts — with flowers and light. 
The angels owned Him, an unseen throng, 
But the silence stirred not with cry or song; 
The great world slumbered, and none drew near, 
But the few, to whom He was more than dear." 

When the trumpet shall sound, and the 
dead in Christ arise, and the faithful in Para- 
dise and on earth be called to the rapture of 
the saints and the Marriage Supper, God grant 
that none of those who have sought Him at 
His Altar-Throne be missing in that great Day 
when He shall make up His Jewels. 
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